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Magazine

COVER PHOTOGRAPH BY LEN DE LESSIO

August 1986

Robert Silverberg

Watchdogs

Bruce Jay Friedman

Post Time

Garry Kilworth

Angel's Eyes

Barbara Owens

Portrait: Edward Larabee

Donald R. Burleson

Milk

Chet Williamson

I'll Drown My Book

Andrew Weiner

This Year, Next Year

John Shea

Epiphany

^ Roger Parson

In the Gray Place

1 F E A T

U R 1 E

Stanley Wiater

Interview: Whitley Strieber

James Vernier e

Movie Preview: 'Aliens' and 'Solar Babies'

Robin Bromley

Breaking In: Chet Williamson

Hal Erickson

Rod Serling's Most Controversial Teleplay

Rod Serling

TZ Classic Teleplay: 'He's Alive'

Gahan Wilson

Weird Weekend

1 O T H E R D 1

M E N S 1 O N

In the Twilight Zone

Letters

E. F. Bleiler

Books

Jonathan White

Book Notes

Robert Edelstein and Stefan Dziemianowicz

TZ Tech

Peter Rondinone

Illuminations

Gahan Wilson

Screen

Welch D. Everman

TZ Video

102

Classified

Twilight Zone Magazine, (Issn § 0279*6090) August 1986, Volume 6, Number 3, is published bimonthly (February, April, Jine, August, October, December)
in the United States and simultaneously in Canada by TZ Publications, a division of Montcalm Publishing Corporation, 800 Second Avenue, hiew York, N.Y. 10017. Telephone
(212) 986-9600. Copyright ® 1986 by TZ Publications. Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone Magazine is published pursuant to a license from Carolyn Serling and Viacom Enterprises
a division of Viacom Int^national, Inc. All rights reserved. Second-class postage paid at New York, N.Y., and at additional mailing offices. Return postage must accompany
all unsolicited material. The publisher assumes no responsibility for care and return of unsolicited materials. All rights reserved on material accepted for publication unless
otherwise specified. All letters sent to Rod Serling s The Twilight Zone Magazine or to its editors are assumed intended for publication. Nothing may be reproduced in whole
or in part without written permission from the publisher. Any similarity between persons appearing in fiction and real persons living or dead is coincidental Single copies
ftc w c bases, and U.S. possessions, $3.00 elsewhere (excepting the December issue, which is $2.95 in the U.S. and $3.50 elsewhere). Subscriptions;

U.S., U.S. military, and U.S. possessions, $15.50; $18.50 elsewhere. All orders must be paid in U.S. currency, Member, Audit Bureau oi. Circulations Postmaster* Send
address changes to Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone Magazine, P.O. Box 252, Mt. Morris, IL 61054-0252. Printed in U S A r-v

4 Twilight Zone

rz IN THE TWILIGHT ZONE

Womanade and other wonders.

We were in the fashionable Apollo
Coffee Shop, trying to come up with a
summer cover. Nothing. Zip. The
cheeseburgers were congealing; the
coffee was growing a milk skin; there
was something vaguely wrong with the
lox, a fact the manager, a man from
the Peloponnesus, staunchly denied.
“I put it in refrigerator only a week,”
he insisted, skewering the logic of
fresh fish.

Our expense account blown on this
suspect cuisine, we sat and stared at
each other numbly. Until the art direc-
tor ordered lemonade. It was served
on ice, with lady.

The rest was easy. We turned her
head with promises of fame and for-
tune, flimflammed her into signing a
model release, and rushed up to the
photographer’s loft. She was a
natural.

Here are some other phenomena.

In Robert Silverberg’s j Watch-
dogs,’-’ some skilled hunters pursue
exotic prey. Here Silverberg delves in-
to nature’s subtle traps to set one of
his own. The author’s most recent
novel, Tom O’Bedlam (Donald I. Fine),
tells a tale of collective dreams, a holy
fool, and a messianic cult of the
future— and tells it well.

Robert Silverberg

Bruce Jay Friedman

We can’t seem to keep animals out
of these pages somehow. Of course,
in Bruce Jay Friedman’s ‘ Post
Time” we get more stream of con-
sciousness than hoof and flank as our
protagonist racehorse tries to puzzle
out the values of the maddening
crowd. Friedman, who moves easily
between the satire of A Mother’s
Kisses and Stern, and such fantasies
as the play Steambath, has a biting
new collection of stories in paperback
entitled Let’s Hear It for a Beautiful
Guy (Carroll Graf).

Chet Williamson adds ‘Til Drown
My Book,” a story that speaks to every
writer’s deepest fears of exposure, to
our summer mix. Williamson, whose
novels Soul Storm and Ash Wednes-
day are due out soon from Tor, got his
start here at TZ. His work has since
appeared in The New Yorker and Play-
boy, among others. (For more on
Williamson, see our interview with him
in ‘‘Breaking In.”)

In “Milk” we begin dealing with that
most peculiar animal of all, homo
newenglandus, as Donald Burleson
mixes some traditional elements with
primal milklust. This is the only story
I know of in which a straw is an in-
strument of horror. Burleson, who lives
in New Hampshire with his wife Mollie,
also a writer, knows his territory well.

Andrew Weiner, whose stories

have been appearing with great
regularity in fantasy and sf magazines
this year, has, like Friedman, put us
inside the mind of a troubled creature.
But whereas Friedman’s thoroughbred
knows he is a horse in a race, the
narrator of “This Year, Next Year” is
having difficulty figuring out who he
is— or even what the rules are. I
recommend this one for readers
plagued by recurrent nightmares.

Weiner’s “Distant Signals,” which
first appeared in TZ, was aired as an
episode of Tales from the Darkside.

Garry Kllworth’s “Angel’s Eyes”
should appeal to those of you with a
taste for the classic ghost story. Kil-
worth has evoked, with charming
ease, the world of the tut man— the
junk man of last recourse— who picks
over the picked-over remains of aban-
doned houses and lost souls. The
author lives in the English village of
Ashington wfiere, he writes, “the Vik-
ings thrashed the English in 1015 and
the Danes have the audacity to build
a commemoratory bonfire every five
years.” Kilworth’s novels include Night
of Kadar and In Solitary, both by Avon.

Roger Parson

Roger Parson’s “In a Gray Place,”
an off-beat tale of a world of soft sur-
faces and featureless vistas, is his first
published fiction. Parson, who had the
good sense to give up corporate law
to write fiction and play the bagpipes,
is pictured at)ove in full regalia. He
is married and the proud father of an
eighteen-monih-old baby who refuses
to sleep.

For connoisseurs of damnation,
John Shea olfers “Epiphany,” a story

6 Twilight Zone

p W^Rod^ i ngs^ _

S, Edward Orenstein
President and Publisher
Brian D. Orenstein
Executive Vice President, Corporate
Russell T. Orenstein ■

Executive Vice President, Corporate
Associate Publisher and
Consulting Editor: Carol Serling
Editor in Chief: Michael Blaine
Associate Editor: Alan Rodgers
Managing Editor: Robin Bromley
Contributing Editors: Gahan Wilson,
James Verniere

Design Director: Michael Monte
Art Director: May Sugano-Koto
Associate Art Director:

Tom Waters

Art Assistant: Cynthia M. Gurganus

Production Director: Stephen J. Fallon
Typography: Benjamin Gines,

Frank Fedornock

0 —

Controller: Chris Grossman
Accounting Manager:

Saul Steinhaus

Accounting Assistants: Asnar Angeles,
Anne Cannon

Office Manager: Margaret Inzana
Office Assistant: Barbara Markey
Traffic: Allan Gewat, Steven Moore

Circulation Director:

Michael Dillon

Subscription Manager: Annmarie Pistilli
Circulation Managers;

Bruce Antonangeli, Midwestern
Harold Bridge III, Southern
Sam Frode-Hansen, Western
Direct Sales Manager: Judy Linden
Circulation Coordinator : Nancy Wolz

Marketing and Promotion Manager:

Veronica Fraga Friedmann
Assistant Promotion Manager:

Laura Marriott
Publicist: Diana Federko
Assistant: Tabitha Crespo

^Advertising Director:

Harold Krause
Advertising Sales Manager:

Marina Paruolo
Advertising Assistant:

Theresa Martorano

Barbara Owens

with an ancient theme that is utterly
timeless. In “Epiphany” we get a
carefully wrought Rome, an ambitious
priest, a provocative reporter — and a
resolution worthy of a medieval vision
of darkness. Shea, who’s an editor at
the University of Pennsylvania’s alum-
ni magazine, has recemtly completed
his thesis on the late — and much la-
mented— A/ew American Review. His
work has also appearrsd in The Parti-
san Review and Alfred Hitchcock's
Mystery Magazine.

Barbara Owens’s “Portrait: Edward
Larabee,” like KilwC'rth’s “Angel’s
Eyes,” is in the classic tradition of
hauntings. But Owens has a number
of tricks of her own, and the denoue-
ment of her story delivers the kind of
payoff readers of the: genre crave.
Barbara Owens is the widely re-
spected author of numerous stories.

one of which, “The Cloud Beneath the
Eaves,” received the Mystery Writers
of America’s Edgar in 1978.

Stanley Wiater, whose fascinating
interview with Whitely Strieber rounds
out this issue, has profiled such
luminaries as Ray Bradbury and
George Pal. His work has appeared
in Fantasy Review, and SF Movieland,
among others. A new Wiater short
story will soon appear in J. N. William-
son’s Cold Sweat: New Masters of
Horror.

Finally, we are twice blessed by
Gahan Wilson here, as he not only
casts his fantasy-jaundiced eye at the
movies, but also takes us along on
a weird Wilsonian romp through the
Victorian halls of Mohonk — and fulfills
a lifelong criminal dream. Take a look
at “Gahan Wilson’s Weird Weekend.”

—MB

John Shea

Stanley Wiater

Twilight Zone 7

n LEHERS

KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE ROAD

Dear Editor:

Richard C. Matheson mentioned
in the August issue of Twilight Zone
that he had “these ongoing fantasies
while driving.”

So do I . . .

... of a rail road crossing at two
a.m. on a lonely country road. I watch
oblong shadows pass across my head-
lights and into another dimension,
while listening to the clickity clack . . .
clickity clack of steel. Then I wait for
the darkness and my imagination to
engulf me.

I did once. Boy, what an embar-
rassment!

—Shannon L. Story
Weatherfopci, Texas

Moral: When you drive, don’t
fantasize.

CANCELLED

Dear Editor:

I am writing in response to your
renewal notice which I received
recently, which urged me to continue
subscribing to Twilight Zone Magazine.
Actually, the subscription was given
to me as a Christmas present, so I
had little to do with it.

First, let me say that I do not in-
tend to renew my subscription. The
main reason for this decision is due
to the content of the magazine. I have
read many of the original Twilight
Zone stories by Rod Serling and have
found them to be incredibly stylish
and original, with great twists and
unexpected endings. In contrast, the
bulk of the story material in your
magazine has very little to do with the
type of Twilight Zone which Rod Ser-
ling invented. Most of it is overly
vulgar and/or sexual, not necessary
for stories in which the main emphasis
is supposed to be on suspense and
intrigue. In fact, it is not only un-
necessary, it is detrimental. The peo-
ple who write the stories for your
magazine cannot seem to grasp this
idea. If you are trying to appeal to
teenagers, who generally love to read
about, hear about, and see sex and
violence, I see your point. But if you
wish to remain loyai to Rod Serling,
you will cut out this unnecessary

material and try to scare and intrigue
your readers, not disgust them. Per-
haps you can even obtain the right
to print some of Serling’s original
stories, too. You may not think so, but
teenagers enjoy them (I am fifteen
and relish them, myself.) Your mag-
azine would sell more, you would
receive more subscriptions, and as a
result, you would make more money.

Thank you for taking the time to
read this letter. I certainly hope you
will at least give some thought to my
comments.

—Andy Schmidt
Allentown, Pennsylvania

In a world of raging Rambos and
pornography-to-go, we find it strange
that TZ should be singled out for be-
ing "vulgar.” We’re also saddened by
the argument that things sexual are
"disgusting. ”

While we see no reason to print
extremely explicit sexual material —
there are plenty of other magazines
and videotapes for those whose tastes
run in that direction — we still remember
when works by James Joyce and D. H.
Lawrence had to be smuggled into the
United States in plain brown wrappers.
That sort of censorship has long been
viewed as a violation of freedom of ex-
pression by the Supreme Court, not to
speak of a transgression against writers
struggling to speak themselves in true
and frank ways.

We hope that other young people
feel as we do— that censorship is the
enemy of art— best practiced by theo-
cracies and dictatorships. Therefore,
we were heartened by the letter below
from Caren Diebold, but we would still
like to hear more from young readers.

RENEWED

Dear Editor:

Thank you for your great maga-
zine. I know a lot has been written
to you about whether the magazine
should be read by young people. I do
not believe in censorship and my two
teenagers and one pre-teen read TZ
with my encouragement and approval!
This is one magazine that should be
in school libraries! People have dif-
ferent iiterary tastes, and the area of
TZ is a long-time favorite of people

of all ages. Keep up the good work!

—Caren Diebold
Lakewood, Colorado

ADVENTURER

Dear Editor:

I’d like to commend TZ for in-
cluding the likes of Dino Buzzati,
Robeiy Wilson, and Julio Cortazar in
its pages. Tliese stories depart from
standard horror or fantasy fare, and
are sometimes a little more difficult
to understand, but that’s precisely why
TZ should prssent them. Please keep
up the adventurous publishing.

—Anna Ballin
Teaneck, New Jersey

Look for more out-of-this genre ex-
periences in TZ!

CRAVING SCHOW

Dear Editor:

In the 1984/1985 issues of Twi-
light Zone magazine you ran a series
of articles on the television show the
Outer Limits. The final installment was
published in the February issue 1985.
In the editor’s column it was noted
that a book would be forthcoming by
the authors of the series, David J.
Schow and Jeffrey Frentzen. I enjoyed
the series and was looking forward to
the book. But for the last several
months I ha\re not been able to find
any additional information about the
authors or their book. I would like to
request any information you could pro-
vide concerning this book, or possibly
information on how to contact the
authors directly.

Mr. Schow informs us that his
guide to Outer Limits will be out In
November. Look for it in a Berkley
Books edition.

If you ’d like to sound off about the fic-
tion or features in TZ, if you’d like to
go into a diatribe about the fantasy
field. If you’re yearning to share the
latest sighting of H. P. Lovecraft with
kindred souls, please write to Twilight
Zone Letters Department, 800
Second Avenue, New York, N.Y.
10017

8 Twilight Zone

T7 BOOKS

Space islands, centrifugal rickshaws, and
a country club of the future.

One of the testimonials on the
cover of Pamela Sargent’s Venus of
Dreams (Bantam, $3.95) predicts
that it will become a classic of its
kind. Assuming that we mean the
same thing by classic, I would al-
most, but not quite, agree — for I have
reservations I shall mention later.
Instead, let me simply say that Venus
of Dreams is a fine sf novel that can
be enjoyed on many levels.

Although it is about 250,000
words long, there is no padding, a
really unusual virtue in a work of this
length. It flows smoothly and evenly,
and holds the reader’s attention in a
world that is alien in setting, but fa-
miliar in humanity. *

Venus of Dreams takes place
about six hundred years from now,
when the earth is controlled by a
world government composed of “nom-
archies” under the rule of the Moslem
Mukhtars (Arabic for “governor”), al-
though the cultural patterns that Sar-
gent describes are essentially Western.
The Mukhtar administration is a tyr-
anny with strict computer-linked social
controls, but with mild penalties for
disobedience or recalcitrance.

Iris Angharads, the central char-
acter, is born and reared among the
Plains people near Lincoln, Nebras-
ka. Her childhood world is a femino-
centric, matriarchal, matrilinear agra-
rian commune, where men are not
really necessary, but wander in and
out for casual liaisons or occasional
planned fatherhood. The Plains cul-
ture is sex-obsessed and promis-
cuous, with strong taboos against
lasting sexual relations. Indeed, one
of the women in the commune is un-
der a social shadow because her two
children were sired by the same man.

The real impetus of the future,
however, is not on earth, but around
Venus, which is being readied for
colonization. A gigantic space um-
brella shuts off the sun’s rays, and
Venus’s surface temperature is al-
ready dropping. Space islands above
Venus house workers who are pre-
paring for the eventual landing and
settlement in domed cities. Convoys
carry loads of hydrogen ice to the at-
mosphere, and special forms of plant

life have been developed to survive
under the still-torrid, poisonous
conditions.

For the Mukhtars Venus is a so-
lution to overpopulation and a step
toward the survival of the race. For
the workers on the space islands
Venus will be a new home. And for
young Iris Angharads it is a dream
goal obsessively sought.

Venus is also a juncture for a

third group beyond the terrestria
and would-be colonists. Not all man-
kind is under the control of the
Mukhtars. There are also the inhabi-
tants of the Associated Habitats,
people who live mostly on artificial
worlds out beyond earth. They have
modified themselves physically with
implanted computer linkages, and
they are hated and feared by the
people of earth and the space is-
lands, especially for their group men-
tality and incomprehensible quietism.
Yet they are necessary, for they
alone have the technology and re-
sources to finish off the Venus pro-
ject. The earth is almost exhausted.
These Habbers, as they are called.

are building the great domes with
robotic labor and have installed
gigantic pyramidal structures that
during the course of the novel will
cause Venus to start rotating. (A
hard-science reader might raise an
eyebrow here and there, but let us
accept all this as author’s license.)

Against this background Sargent
narrates Iris’s life, first as a young
woman in i:he Plains who conceals
her intelligence and her drive toward
education and the Venus project.
Later, she violates Plains mores by
signing a twenty-year marital bond
with a congenial young man who has
served on a space island, breaks
another bond in training school as a
meteorological technician, and finally
moves to an island above Venus,
where she lolds a higher rank than
her quasi-husband and gradually
grows away from him. She would be
very successful in her field, were it
not for job politics, for although there
are others who are more brilliant,
she has an intuitive comprehension
of random factors that her male col-
leagues lack. (Feminine intuition
crawling back in via the rear space
hatch?)

All thrcugh Iris’s triumphs and
failures Sargent stresses the single
theme of duty, whether it is Iris’ re-
sponsibility 1:o her own self-fulfillment,
to her mother in the closely-knit
Plains matriarchy, to her quasi-
husband the gentle Chen, to her
son, or, most of all, to the Venus
project, wh€!re duty assumes an as-
pect reminiscent of old-fashioned pa-
triotism. But as Iris later realizes, she
does not always level the balances.
She has demolished her mother; has
estranged the likeable Chen; and,
worst of all, her parental neglect has
cost her her son, who after legally
disowning fier, defects to the Hab-
bers — a shocking act. Iris is crushed,
but bobs ufi again, following a guilt-
fueled duty in new forms; self-sacri-
fice, and empathy.

Until now Sargent has developed
Iris beautifully in terms of social and
psychological realism, but now the
story changes in a way that bothers
me. Sargent turns her novel of hu-
man relationships into a cliffhanger
and a thriller. Iris becomes a world-
saver in a way reminiscent of Hein-
lein’s “The Long Watch.” She alone
may be able to prevent .a band of im-

10 Twilight Zone

by E. F. BLEILER

l iltctu bnirnl

patient labor agitators from blowing for women than for men; and a have no knowledge of her personally,
up the partially finish(3d domes on thought-provoking subtext creates and story does not always mirror life,
the surface of Venus. She manages tension among the various drives But I do suggest that these are
to minimize the destruction, but dies and motivations. Oddly enough, among the ultimate implications of
in the explosion. Iris is now the great though the author is usually con- her novel. Whether they will be re-
Cytherean martyr, with a statue sidered a feminist writer, her subtext tained in future volumes, or whether
based on one of her husband’s is basically conservative. Venus of they will be declared the warped no-
carved portraits. Dreams suggests that while women tions of a crookedly grown society, to

Too bad. Is such a plunge into may be emancipated sexually, they be redeemed by the Habbers, I won’t
melodrama really necessary? Is a are tied up in other ways that even guess. I am simply looking for-
retreat into the old action tradition hamper and frustrate them. A woman ward to more of what is, with excep-
the only way to demonstrate that a like the sometimes bitchy Iris may tion noted, one of the best sf novels
woman can be heroic? As a parallel have a right to selfhood, but her I have read in a while,
case, take Dickens’s Great Expecta- responsibilities to her family, the -

tions, which is also about selfish- story implies, are greater still. It is With William John Watkins’s
ness. What would we think if he had praiseworthy if individuals sacrifice The Centrifugal Rickshaw Dancer
placed Pip in a shoot-out with Chart- their lives for a project of the state, (Warner, $2.95) we enter a world
ists and killed him in the explosions and those who protest a shafting are superficially similar to Sargent’s
shattering the Vauxhall filtration dangerous, evil agitators who de- Venus of Dreams, what with space
plant? serve the ill fate they receive. And clutter and dreams of freedom, but

This departure from tone and the height of woman’s destiny can very different in attitudes and ap-
line is the reason I cannot call Venus be expressed in the old saw, Dulce proaches. Whereas Sargent stresses
of Dreams a true classic, even et decorum est pro patria more— It is human values and relationships in a
though it is outstanding in many sweet and proper to die for one’s future context, and by implication is
other ways. The background is de- country. hitting at galactic humanity, Watkins

tailed firmly and convincingly: I do not suggest for a minute is ironically concerned with a strug-

characterizations are strong and that these ideas extracted from Ven- gle for liberty against tyranny, and
vital, though perhaps more rounded us of Dreams are Sargent’s ideals. I his approach is calculatedly bizarre.

HUBBARD

WRITERS

OFTriE

Mi»rd «tn(iiilK -•liHio h\ iiw iiuthor

FRANK HERBERI ANNE McCAPFREY
LARRY NIVEN GENE WOLFE

EdwH I

ALOIS BIDRYS

c 1986 Bridge Publications. Inc. Al Rights Reserved.

L. RON HUBBARD

PRESENTS

EXCITING NEW WORLDS OF IMAGINATION

WRITERS^FUTURE

VOLUME II

“...the best of the fresh talent in the field of
science fiction. "

GENE WOLFE

"Here's skill and storytelling aplenty - these
writers of the future have already arrived!"

ROBERT SILVERBERG

"...fifteen brand-new speculative-fiction tales
of every kind. A landmark for Sf -lovers...
and for anyone ready for entertainment."

ALGIS BUDRYS

PLUS!

Straight-from-the-shoulder-tips on writing from:

L. Ron Hubbard, Frank Herbert, Anne McCaffrey,
Larry Niven and Gene Wolfe.

NOW ON SALE!
Only $3.95

Available wherever paperbacks are sold.

BUY YOUR COPY
TODAY!

Twilight Zone 11

T7 BOOKS

his ideas often shocking.

The action of The Centrifugal
Rickshaw Dancer takes place in a
future far enough away for earth to
be ringed with six artificial habitats
and several energy satellites that
keep the povyer-hungry, power-poor
earth functioning. Over several
generations the six habitats have
developed cultures of their own —
brutal thuggishness for Hardcore, the
former space warehouse; whimsical
eccentricity for Catchcage; and devi-
ousness for Grand Sphere. A com-
mon factor to all the worldlets, how-
ever, is cultural imbalance and
cheapness of human life. The pre-
sent problem is that the habitats are
exploited by the earth-based Corpo-
ration, which is the creature of the
great Spencer LeGrange, a larger-
than-life wealth-hog who would make
John D. Rockefeller, Sr.,* look like
Appieseed Johnnie. One of Old
Spence’s tricks to keep his hard-hat
police in line involves forty-foot
holograms of himself.

The story is set in Grand
Sphere, the interior of a globe about
three miles in diameter. This is the
world of the Down Side Granders, a
culture of devious and cynical men
and women who live by fleecing tour-
ists, ripping off the Corporation, and
swindling each other. Keeping them
somewhat under control is the Fist,
the Corporation police, a tough
bunch of strutting cops equipped
with prod rods (called canes) that
can deliver lethal shocks. Guns are

TlieCei)triIu9(il
Rkkshaw Dancer

WILLIAM JOHN WATKINS

license and mores of New York City
cabbies.

Watkins does not describe the
rickshaw precisely, but it seems to
be a contraption of wheels and forks,
with seats for driver and passenger,
both of whom must stay in balance.
How it works mechanically or
whether it would work at all is not
important. More significant is its sym-
bolic value. For the author it is life
in the habitats, motion, coordination,
the momentum of fate, and the irre-
sistibility of the Revolution.

For the Granders the rickshaw is
the nucleus around which cultural

not allowed on Grand Sphere, for a
bullet could pierce its shell and a
broken Window could render the
world airless. And above and beyond
the lower Granders and the police
are the Up Side Pleasure Crew, the
third generation of the profiteers who
built the habitats. An incredibly deca-
dent bunch, they live lives of de-
lights, splendors, and sensualities
almost indescribable.

Central to Grand Sphere is the
centrifugal rickshaw, a device that
must be something like gigantic gyro-
scopes controlled by shifting one’s
body weight and position, somewhat
like the high school physics experi-
ment with rotating gimbals. The rick-
shaw is the chief means of transpor-
tation within Grand Sphere, and in-
dividual rickshaws are operated by a
clique of virtuosi who have the

patterns crystallize. It is the focus of
songs and sayings reminiscent of
twentieth-century calypso music
(especially that of Lord Invader).
Most of these pronouncements,
which are conveyed in a patois like
a deep black dialect, have double
and triple entendres, ranging from
literal communications, sexual slurs,
and insults to code messages. Ac-
tually the whole planetoid is much
like a fictional Caribbean island
where everyone is on the make, chi-
seling, outwitting, and plotting.

Also central to the culture is the
pleasure principle, which is devel-
oped to an extent that would arouse
the envy of an Edwardian psycho-
analyst. There are special
pleasuresuits that record delights,
and apparatus that can repeat ex-
tended ecstasies, as well as the

tickler, a small, pill-like dot that is
placed on the forehead. Perfected by
the Corporation, it creates the ulti-
mate in ad(fictive pleasure, and it is
one of Spencer LeGrange’s most po-
tent controlling devices.

Unfortunately, there is one prob-
lem with the Corporation tickler. It
must be irndividually fitted to a per-
son, a long process which involves a
lab full of equipment for plotting

brain elements. As the tickler is not
transferrabk! to others, there has
arisen the myth of the Universal
Tickler, a simple device that would fit
anyone, yet be as effective as the

Corporation model. On Grand

Sphere the Universal Tickler has

become something of a con game,
shares of w^hich are sold to visiting
suckers. Yet there is the possibility
that it migfit be developed, making
its inventor a power to be reckoned
with. Now the word is going around
that a workable Universal Tickler is
in the hands of the Revolution. Will
Old Spence act?

The story line of The Centrifugal
Rickshaw Dancer focuses on two
well-drawn personalities, Uwalk Wenn
and Roger Count Aerowaffen. Uwalk
Wenn is the most skilled of the in-
credibly coordinated rickshaw men,
and his primacy is recognized. He is
also, in effect, a dhyana master out
in space, for he takes his rickshaw
and his expertise with the electric
cane most holily, seeing their manage-
ment as inner disciplines rather than
a matter of coordination and reflexes.

Associated with Uwalk Wenn is
the Dionysian Count Aerowaffen, one
of the guiding minds of the revolu-
tion. A nati\re of the jester world of
Catchcage, a Grander by long resi-
dence, Aerowaffen acts as “Panda”
to the Pleasure Crew. That is to say,
he is a leeider in their orgies and
revels, for he has the imagination
otherwise lacking in the culture. One
of the Pleasure Crew who appreciates
this is the sex and romp queen
Eleganza, the delight of all the worlds.

Watkins’s book, though directly
political in p bt, is not concerned with
social dynamics. It does not analyze
motivations as tugs in different direc-
tions as dees Sargent’s, and it is
frankly simplistic and incident-
concerned. Everyone agrees that the
removal of the Corporation from the
(continued on page 71)

12 Twilight Zone

W7 BOOK NOm

m Mm mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Sfate-of-the-art cyberspace, conversations
with Dick, and anthologies galore.

I’ve never been very fond of
high-tech sf, which is often blindly
worshipful of science, conservative,
boring, and smug. And that is why,
when William Gibson’s Neuromancer
came out a few years ago, I skipped
it, even though it picked up every
award in the book, and even though
it was pressed on me by an author
acquaintance, with missionary fervor.

Then recently Count Zero (Arbor
House, $15.95) appeared, and this
time I took the trouble to read the
first page. Reading that page, with
its spectacular compression and pre-
cision, its inventive and playful use

of language and image, and its ma-
chine gun rhythms was like watching
a door open, revealing a landscape
I hadn’t suspected was there. It gave
me a sense of pleasure and dis-
covery I have not received from
words in years.

Count Zero is state of the art sf.
It’s a turning point — it will change
things the way Weinbaum’s “A
Martian Odyssey” changed things,
and then Heinlein changed things,
and then Sturgeon, and then Dick.

Gibson’s control is, I think, un-
matched. Not only his control of
language and image, and of mood
and character, but also his simple
mastery of things. He appears to

catmr

MMmmMMmm

possess a familiarity with the way
things work that is breathtaking.

Count Zero takes place in a
believable twenty-first century. Urban
sprawl has created a megalopolis
stretching from Boston to Houston
(called, naturally, the Sprawl). Life is
grimmer than it is today.

The story moves through three
plot lines that finally converge. The
first concerns a two-fisted type
named Turner, a mercenary for the
huge corporations that virtually con-
trol governments and economies.
Turner is “a specialist in the extrac-
tion of top executives and research
people . . . ,” wresting them from the
dominion of a corporation, an im-
mensely dangerous game.

The second story line follows a
former art gallery owner named Marly
Krushkova who is hired by the world’s
richest, most powerful man, Josef
Virek, to locate the obscure and
elusive artist who has created an
evocative piece similar to the boxes
of the twentieth-century artist Joseph
Cornell. Virek is kept alive by vast
life support systems and only ap-
pears to his agents and employees
in a simulation of reality.

The last major character is Bob-
by Newmark, aka Count Zero, a slum
kid who deals in black market soft-
ware. Testing a program one day,
Bobby finds himself hooked into a
fatal feedback circuit, from which he
is saved at the last moment by a sort
of divine intervention — a voice from
nowhere.

That nowhere, it turns out, is
Cyberspace, a group mind composed
entirely of interconnected computers.
Someplace along the line. Cyber-
space has become self-aware. Some
hackers think Cyberspace is God.

The book at first seems to be
about the extraction of a top scientist
from a Texas installation, then it
seems to be about the manipulations
of the world’s most powerful man
and the distorting effect he has upon
everything he touches. Eventually it
is about the mysteries that erupt
from the interplay of many disparate
lives and minds, of forces that are
beyond anyone’s control or conscious-

ness. Gibson seems to constantly be
taking greater chances, and he is
always equal to the task. He never
falters. Court Zero is an astonishing
performance,

Gibson has created in Count
Zero a thriller that is much more than
a thriller, that is not only about the
way we live and the way we may
live, but abcut the very mystery and
excitement of existence itself.

Paul Williams’s Only Apparent-
ly Real: The World of Philip K.
Dick (Arbor House, trade paperback,
$7.95) gives us a look at P.K.D. in
the mid-sev(}nties. The book is com-
posed of a reworking of Williams’s
1975 Rolling Stone profile inter-
spersed with transcripts of conver-
sations betv/een Dick and Williams
that took place over a three-day
period in 1974, sometimes in the pre-

sence of [lick’s then-wife Teresa.
Much of the talk revolves around the
break-in and robbery of Dick’s house
that occurred in November, 1971, an
event that seemed to vindicate many
of Dick’s feelings of paranoia.

Despite this paranoia, Dick is, by
turns, unpretentious, enthusiastic, fun-
ny, and — unbearably lonely. (He went
through five marriages and any num-
ber of live-in lovers. While he doesn’t
appear to have had trouble attracting
women, the relationships didn’t last.)
Dick’s isolation triggered a couple
of suicide attempts and set him on
a spiritual quest. In the mid-seventies
he had several mystical experiences
that freed him of some of his fears

14 Twilight Zone

by JONATHAN WHITE

by showing him an ordered, mean-
ingful universe.

As Dick’s work demonstrates,
his concerns were the concerns of
many of us. The premier voice of the
Age of Anxiety, he wrote of our
sense of aloneness, of meaningless-
ness. In the constantly deteriorating
realities through whicli his characters
struggle, he found an objective corre-
lative for our time. Eut Only Appar-
ently Real seems finally to be a trial
run for a longer work. The biographi-
cal material is rather skimpy, much
of it presented in a brief Chronologi-
cal Preface, although Williams writes
that as Dick’s literary executor he
has “become the temporary custo-
dian of many thousands of pages of
correspondence.” This puts him at a
distinct advantage over other pro-
spective biographers (Cregg Rickman,
for example, whose biography of Dick
should be out by the time you read
this, from a small California firm.
Fragments West.) Williams’s own
Philip K. Dick Society Newsletter
(Box 611, Glen Ellen, CA 95442) has
published a good deal of information
not to be found in this volume.

The scope of Only Apparently
Real, then, has been rather sharply
limited. What we have is an ex-
tended conversation that gives us
the beginning of a sense of what it
was like to know aid talk to the
man. If that was Williams’s intention,
he succeeded. But it left me wanting
more.

Young Ghosts, edited by Isaac
Asimov, Martin H. Gireenberg, and
Charles G. Waugh (Harper & Row,
$11.95), is one of a series from these
editors, aimed at teens. Others in-
clude Young Mutants, Young Extrater-
restrials, and so on; the gimmick
here is that not only are the stories
relatively simple, but the ghost-
mutant-extraterrestrial, et cetera is a
child. Asimov has contributed an in-
troduction that is geared to children,
but does not talk down to them. I am
constantly impressed by the man’s
range and professionalism.

Then come the stories. There
are twelve, most of tfiem rather well
written, but none really scary.

Several are quite predictable, in-
cluding those by M. R. James, Rich-
ard Middleton, and Edward Lucas
White. Interestingly, these also tend-
ed to be among the best written,
crafted with care and aimed to instill

a sense of eerieness rather than hor-
ror. I myself prefer stronger stuff,
and I did as a child, but I must say
I did like M. R. James’s “Lost
Hearts,” with its bizarre scholar vil-
lain. It was also nice to read a story
by Edward Lucas White other than

the oft-reprinted “Lukundoo.”

The other, more modern, less
predictable stories were a mixed lot:
Richard Matheson’s “Old Haunts”
spends a good deal of time setting
mood and scenes — a travelling sales-
(continued on page 71)

.it

The action intensifies
as Voltarian Invaders
land at their fortress
in Hirkey! The Mission
which will save or
destroy Earth has
begua
VOLUME 3
THE ENEMY WITHIN
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of adventure.**
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Twilight Zone 15

W7TCCH

MAPDASH

Did you ever want
to take those in-
decipherable handwritten
directions and pitch
them into the nearest

receptacle? Essentially,

» that’s what you can do
with the help of the
Etak Navigator, the
world’s first Vector-
graphic display roadmap

system for the car.

The navigator is a
computerized monitor
whose compact tape
drive unit digests
Etakmap cassettes of
your terrain. Streets
appear as a road map on
the high resolution
dash-mounted
viewscreen. As your car
moves, a sensor
mounted in the rear
wheels and a compass
installed in the
headlights or rear win-
dow move the map
around it, so that what
you see through the
windshield is what you
see on the monitor. A
touch of the zoom but-
ton allows you to adjust
the map scale from a
V4-mile to a 10-mile
radius, and if you have

a specific destination in
mind, you can mark it
with a blinking star and
figure out the easiest
route to it as you drive.
Positional accuracy is
guaranteed to within 50
feet.

The monitor comes
with a choice of 4-inch
or 7-inch diagonal
screen that retails for
$1395 and $1595,
respectively. Individual
Eteikmaps, which cost
$35, are easily updated
to accomodate new
roads and points of in-
tensst. The next genera-
tion of Etak navigator
will also feature road-
sida services and
places of interest. Next,
the Etak chauffeur?

For ETAK information:

(41 5) 328-3825

DO YOU HEAR WHAT
I SEE?

Sometimes purchasing
stereo equipment is like
buying Chinese food: one
from column A, or
one from column B — but
no substitutions. But with
Pioneer’s CLD-900
LaserDisc unit, you
should be able to
satisfy your entire
audio-visual appetite.

The CLD-900 is a
harmonious marriage of
the LaserVision music
video with a Compact
Disc providing
audiophile-quality sound.
Its objective lens, servo-
systems, dual drives,
and microprocessors are
specifically designed to
make Laservision’s
analog signals and CD’s
digital signals compati-
ble, whether the system
is accomodating 5-inch
CD’s or 8-to-1 2-inch
standard-or long-play
LV videodiscs. A
fingertip-powered infrared

remote control allows
easy random access to
the video frames of
your choice. They can
be scanned, stopped, or
flashed through at three
times the normal speed
and a digital time dis-
play lets you memorize
exactly where your
favorite scenes can be

found.

For groupies looking
to set world records in
devotion, scenes can by
played continuously up
to 256 times in a row.
When the CD unit is
hooked up to a televi-
sion monitor, the same
display mode tells you
which track is being

played, what the disc’s
total play time is, and how
much time has elapsed.

S )0 with the CLD-900
LaserDisc, you can get
one from column A and
from column B. And it’s
a cinch you’ll always be
hungry for more.

For Pioneer information:
(21 3) 420-5700

18 Twilight Zone

by ROBERT EDELSTEIN and STEFAN DZIEMIANOWICZ

LISTEN TO YOUR FiiVCE

Maybe it was the
angle of the bathroom
mirror light, or that
tender spot you instinc-
tively coddle with your
safety razor. All you
know is that you’ve got
a meeting with the t)oss
and you’re sprouting a
small ant colony under
your jawbone.

It never would have
happened if you’d
started your day witfi
Advanced Products’
Soundshave. The prin-
ciple behind the five-
ounce battery-powered
mini-razor is that you
not only can see what’s
as plain as your faci3,
you can hear it, too.
Unlike coventional elec-
tric razors that buzzj:aw
down your cheeks
regardless of what is or
isn’t there, the three
micro-thin stainless steel
blades rotating at 12D0
rpm behind the ultra-

sheer head of the
Soundshave stop mak-
ing noise when they’ve
stopped digesting the
stubble. When the whirr-
ing is over, you’ve got
an even smoother
shave, and your face
doesn’t feel like it just
went three rounds with
an over-zealous
masseuse.

The best thing about
the Soundshave is that
it can do its magic
without mirrors, so you
can take it with you in
the car on those morn-
ings when you can’t af-
ford to be late or look
grizzled. Its microphone
shape fits conveniently
into a pocket or glove
compartment for early
evening touch-ups. At
$24.95, it could be the
most economic way yet
to save face.

For Soundshave
information:

(206) 883-8897

STAT-SHOESQUE

Maxwell Smart was the
first man to talk to his
shoe. Now, the Adidas
Micropacer is the first
shoe that talks back. And
it speaks to you in
tongues, no less. The left
tongue of this men’s
running shoe is equipped
with a liquid crystal
display that gives you
readouts on your daily
running starts.

The Micropacer is not
just a fancy pedometer
that works on ieg mo-
tion. A pressure sensor
running under the big
toe transmits impulses
back to the battery-
powered computer. Based
on preset values for
your weight, stride, and
calorie metabolism, the
shock resistant unit
computes total running
distance, total running
time, average running
speed, and calories
burned. The system *
stops running when you
do, and while you’re

catching your breath
you can get your vital
statistics by pushing
combinations of the four
buttons flanking the
meter face. Presuming
that you’ll be getting
faster, looser, and
svelter, the buttons also
allow you to change
your preset input as
necessary.

But the Micropacer is
more Than just a fancy
gadget to match
designer sweats. The
silver kangaroo leather
uppers, pronation/supina-
tion controlling midsole
and weight-supporting/
shock-distributing outsole
were designed to be bio-
mechanically safe and
efficient for runners who
log as many as 85
miles a week. Although
it retails for $110, the
Micropacer is the first
shoe that will let you
run like a Six Million
Dollar Man.

For Adidas information:
(201) 233-8030 ■

Twilight Zone 19

ILLUSTRATIONS BY KIM ZIMMERMAN

rz ILLUMINATIONS

AFRICAN APHRODISIAC

If you were to play
Alphabetical Africa —
compiling a list of all
things African beginning
with the letter A — your
list would certainly
contain words like
Anteater and Antelope.
But now here’s
something new to add
to the roster: African
Aphrodisiac.

Julian Davidson, a
Stanford neuroendocrin-
ologist, recently
published a paper in
Science discussing the
possibility of deriving a
drug with aphrodisiac
qualities from the bark
of an African tree —
yohimbine. In the article
(August 24, 1984),
Davidson wrote that the
“data suggested that
yohimbe may be a true
aphrodisiac, since it
increases arousal in
sexually inexperienced
male rats, facilitates
copulatory behavior in
sexually naive males,
and induces sexual
activity in males . . .

previously . . . inactive.”

To acquire these
results, Davidson and
his research team
injected male rats with
an antihypertensive drug
which had a
“devastating effect on
sexual behavior.” The
rats had “no motivation
for mating, no evidence
of sexual arousal.”

Then the team
attempted to reverse the
effects with the
yohimbine — and it
worked.

At first, when news of
these results reached
the media, Davidson
tried to explain his
findings with the hope
of informing the public
about the taboo subject
of male impotence. But
he quickly discovered
that the fine distinction
between rats and men
was often glossed over.
While yohimbe may be
an aphrodisiac when
used on rats, Davidson
reports that the drug
has never been tested
on human beings. Still,

he found that many
tabloids misrepresented
his findings. One article
in a national newspaper,
Davidson claims,
actually ran a headline
that read: “Love Potion
from Tree Works
Wonders for Impotent
Men, Report Scientists.”

Davidson indicates
that years of research
are still needed before
yohimbine is found to
be a cure for sexually
impotent men. “But,”
says Davidson in
Science ’86 (Jan.), “I
do believe that
pharmacologic
treatments for impotence
will be discovered . . .
Hopefully soon.”

SPACE COLONY
MARS

The first steps are
being taken to establish
a permanent, manned
base, even a colony, on
the red planet Mars.
Planetary scientist Carol
Stoker, a National
Research Council Fellow
at NASA’s Ames

Research Center in
California, is now one
of many Mars
enthusiasts who believes
life— human life— on
Mars is possible.

When Stoker was just
a student, in fact, she
looked into the
possibility (in theory) of
actually transforming the
Martian atmosphere into
one like our own.
“Basically,” she says,
“wsi came up with a
scheme to crash a
comet into Mars. That’s
how the planets got
their atmospheres in the
first place. So if it
happened that way in
the beginning, it was
reasonable it could be
done this way again.”
The comet would
apparently contain the
gases needed to
support life, such as
oxygen, which would be
released when the
comet crashed into the
planet.

“But to crash a
comet into a planet,”
says Stoker, “you have
to do something heroic.
First you’d have to find
the right comet, one
that crosses the orbit of
Mars. Then you’d have
to steer it by doing
something like landing a
mans driver on its
surface which would
perturb its orbit enough
to drive it into Mars.
But.” she adds, “the
tecfinology to do this
could take another one
hundred to two hundred
yea's.”

Stoker then looked
into yet another
scenario for turning the
Martian atmosphere into
one like our own. “We
loohed into the
possibility of introducing
mic'obes into the
Martian soil,” she says,
“which would eventually
release gases for

20 Twilight Zone

by PETER RONDINONE

human survival into the
atmosphere. It seemed
like a good idea,
provided you start by
heating up Mars a little
bit, so the microbes
could thrive on Mars,
which is cold. But how
do you heat up Mars, a
little bit? You can't
really put it in an
oven.”

Finding these ideas
too far-fetched, says
Stoker, “We took up
the idea of setting up a
manned base on Mars.
The planet,” she
explains, “can easily
provide humans with
the requirements for
life.” Mars offered water
(probes have found that
Mars has vast quantities
of water stored as
permafrost underground);
food (it’s possible to
rinse the highly salted
Martian soil with enough
water to make it usaole
for greenhouse
agriculture): and even
shelter (astronauts could
bore into Martian
cliffsides to create high-
tech habitats), accord ng
to Stoker.

How soon could all of
this happen? Stoker
claims that the National
Commission on Space
which was appointed by

the President has
completed its work and
is about to present its
recommendations to
Congress. “And,” she
says, “we have
information that Mars
will be a big part of
their recommendation.
We’re looking at a
twenty year time scale
to complete our first
Mars mission.”

OF WIVES AND HATS

There was once a
professor who couldn’t
recognize faces. So he
would go around patting
the tops of fire
hydrants, thinking they
were little children. And
though this may sound
like a story from the
Twilight Zone, it is
actually one of many
“clinical tales” written
by Dr. Oliver Sacks, a
professor of clinical
neurology at the Albert
Einstein College of
Medicine in the Bronx.

A clue to the book’s
informative but strange
contents lies in its title.
The Man Who Mistook
His Wife For a Hat, And
Other Clinical Tales
(Summit Books, $15.95).

Dr. Sacks gathered
the raw material for his
book from his twenty

years in full-time clinical
practice. In the title
story, for example. Dr.
P., a distinguished
musician, loses his
ability to distinguish
people and objects at a
glance. Although his
vision appeared normal,
he still mistook his
wife’s head for a hat;
and he’d act
accordingly; he’d try to
lift his wife’s head, as
if it were a hat, and
put it on his own.

Dr. Sacks notes that
Dr. P. was not
demented. He could
carry on normal
conversations, and he
could play the piano,
though he lost the
ability to read music.

But slowly and
laboriously. Dr. P. did
eventually learn how to
work out an object by
analyzing out loud what
it looked like.

“And in this case,”

Dr. Sacks points out,
“this had to do with an
involvement of the
visual part of the
brain — the so-called
visual association of the
cortex.

“In some cases,” Dr.
Sacks adds, “treatment

is possible, but in some
it isn’t. And all of my
cases in the book do
have some physiological
basis. However, I do
feel strongly that even
if there is no treatment
in the conventional
medical sense, a great
deal can be done by
an understanding of
what it is like for these
people and by helping
them cope.”

In fact. Dr. Sacks
says that his main
reason for writing these
tales was “to try and
provide a feeling of
sympathetic
understanding. I think
many such people with
neurological problems
are stigmatized as nutty
when they are nothing
of the sort. They are
bravely trying to make
the best of a very
bizarre situation,
struggling to be human
and live the richest
possible life.”

So if you’d like to
learn more about these
strange afflictions (some
of which can make
people unsure of the
reality of their own
bodies). Dr. Sacks’ book
is your ticket. ■

Twilight Zone 21

t was one of those slow, heavy summer nights, heat hanging
like damp Vi'ool over everything. Mick said, "What about we
do some night hunting tonight, Chazz?"

"Hunting?" C'hazz said. "At night!"

"Pass the time," said Mick.

Lolie said, "Who the fuck goes hunting at night?"

"And where?" Chazz asked.

Mick gave them a long scornful look. "Who goes hunting at
night is us. And where is out at the Branson place."

"The zoo?" Chazz said, blinking. He seemed to be having trouble
believing that he had heard what he had heard. "Go hunting at old
man Branson's zoo?"

"Right. The i^ood old Branson zoo. Hunt us some buffalo, hunt
us some gazelles. Maybe even hunt us some cheetah." Mick grinned
and hooked an imaginary arrow in an imaginary bow and drew back
the string until his right arm looked about ready to pop out of its
socket.

"Whoosh!" he said, and let the arrow fly. He leaned close fo
Chazz, nose to nose. "Or we take out one of the elephants, huh?
Beats hunting rabbits, man. You think anybody ever took out an
elephant with bow and arrow?"

Chazz made a face. "Isn't possible," he said.

"With a poison-tipped arrow, maybe," Lolie said vaguely. "In
Africa, maybe that's how they do it. Eh, Mick?"

"Shit," Mick said. "You think that's sporting? "Poison tip? We're
talking about sport, man."

"I don't think you can do it just with a plain bow and arrow,"
said Chazz. "Hide's too thick. Unless you land it right in the
elephant's eye — "

He broke off, shaking his head. "I
think the heat's put you off your
head, Mick. You actually talking
about going out there and let Bran-
son's elephants loose? Let his fucking
cheetahs loose? And us there with just
a bow and arrow?"

"Sport," Mick said. "Pass the
time. You chicken?"

"Who said? But at least I got
some sense. You want to shoot an ele-
phant, get yourself an elephant gun."

"Wake up half the county," Mick
said. He nocked another imaginary ar-
row. "Well? You guys with me? We
drive out there by midnight, hunt till
the sun come up. Shoot any fucking
thing you want. Zebra, chimpanzee,
kangaroo. Make them hop, put an ar-
row up their ass. You thinks you can
hit a -kangaroo on the hop?"

"What about the burglar alarms?"
Lolie asked.

"What alarms?"

"Fellow got a private zoo worth a
million bucks, you think there's no
alarm? Anybody can just walk in at
midnight and shoot the place up for
goddamn fun?"

"Seven four nine, three oh six,"
Mick said.

"What?"

"Seven four nine, three oh six. It's
the alarm override. You climb a big
eucalyptus tree by the north wall and
jump over, and there's a control panel
next to the buffalo enclosure. If you
tap in the override numbers within
sixty seconds after the scanner beam
picks you up, it cancels the alarm."

"Yeah?" Chazz said. "You know
that for sure?"

"I got it from Richie Slater's
girlfriend Julie. Richie who works for
old man Branson. Richie and Julie,
they go inside some nights. They play
with the animals and then they like to
screw, right outside the cages. The
smell of the animals turns them on, or
something. That's what Julie told me.
Julie, she was always weird, huh?"

"You're sure that weird Julie gave
you the right number?"

"Look, Chazz, you just stay home
tonight and forget you heard me say
anything, okay?"

"I was just asking — "

"Me and Lolie, we'll go. You just
stay home and do all the worrying for

us. Okay? Okay?"

"I didn't say I wouldn't go."
"Look at all the worrying you're
doing, man."

"Those are reasonable questions I
been raising."

"Lolie? Come on, Lolie."

Chazz said, "For example, what if
Richie and Julie happen to be getting
it on in there this very night just when
we show up?"

Mick spat. To Lolie he said, "You
got the bows in your van?"

"It's worth thinking about, isn't
it?" Chazz said. "We start hunting
things and Richie comes along and

The animals
must have
sensed
something
was going on,
because they
started to
move in
panicky little
bursts, darting
in and
out between
the oaks.

spots US, our ass is grass."

"Fuck you," Mick said. "It hap-
pens that Richie and Julie went to
Sacramento for the weekend. Where's
the van, Lolie?"

"In the Bank of America lot. I'll
get it and drive around."

"Yeah. Well, good night, Chazz."
"Screw you. I'm coming."
"You are?"

"Bet your sweet dongolevio."

"You gonna worry about crap all
the way there?"

"Those were reasonable questions,
Mick."

"Well, you got any more reason-
able questions you feel like asking?"

Chazz scowled. "Will you get off
my case, Mick? Here comes Lolie with
the van."

Mick was nocking arrows again.
"Shoot a kangaroo first thing," he said.
"Right up the old bazoo." He laughed.
"The bazoo of the kangaroo! A poet
and I don't know it! Hey, man! Hey,
what a gas this is going to be!"

B y half past eleven they were out
by Clayton Corners, half a mile
from th(! Branson place. They left
the van there, killed a couple of
six-packs, and went the rest of
the way on f(3ot. The moon was prac-
tically full and the bright clean light
cut through the humid haze like a
beacon.

The Branson ranch was six miles
east of town, where the flat sprawling
fields began to rise into the tawny
foothills. Thf Bransons had about a
hundred acres out there, and a dozen
of them were fenced off around what
must have been one of the best private
animal collections in the country. Ned
Branson collected wild animals the
way some other rich men hunted
them. He had made his money in
building retail malls, and now he was
ploughing it back into cheetahs and
gazelles, elephants and kangaroos, all
sorts of animals that thrived in the
dry hot California back country. The
state and county regulatory agencies
gave him plenty of trouble, of course.
But you don't get to make two hun-
dred million in retail malls without
putting together a pretty fair legal
staff, and so far Ned Branson and his
zoo had held off the bureaucracy
without much trouble.

"Here's the tree," Mick said. "We
go right up and over. Nothing to it."

"You mind if I ask a question?"
Chazz said.

"Go on."

"How do we get out again?"
"This gate over here, it opens
from inside. We open it and we walk
out. Anything else, Chazz?"

"All right," Chazz said. "I just had
to ask."

The tree was a fat thick eucalyp-
tus maybe a century old, with peeling
grey-and-white bark. It crotched five
feet from the ground, and a heavy
branch led up and out from there
right over the back fence of the Bran-
son compound. Easy. Real easy. Mick
went first, vaulting up into the crotch
and walking out on the big branch
like a high-wire artist. Chazz tossed
him the bov.'s. Mick threw them over
and jumped off after them into the
darkness. There was the sound of a

24 Twilight Zone

soft landing on the far side of the
wall. "Come on," he called, and Chazz
went next, and then Lolie joined him
inside the compound. Mick was on the
far side, punching numbers into a key-
board mounted on a p'ost.

"Seven four nine, tfiree oh six," he
said. "There. We're safe." There was a
big open meadow in the middle,
dotted by a few widely spaced oak
trees, and all around the rim of the
place were cages and larger fenced en-
closures with shadowy forms moving
restlessly around in them. There were
animals everywhere, half visible by
moonglow, dark, indistinct, bulky
shapes. Some of them v/ere wandering
loose in the meadow — gazelles, kanga-
roos, goats of some strange kind,
llamas. A million smells were floating
around, like barnyard smells, but
much stranger. "Jesus, take a whiff,"
Chazz said. "This is what turns Julie
on?"

"I told you she was weird," Mick
said. He slipped his quiver over his
back and started stringing his bow.
The three of them had been hunting
together since they wei-e ten, rabbits
mainly, deer now and then, sometimes
stray dogs and cats v/hen they got
bored. Always with bow and arrow.
They had taken up archery at first just
to be a little different, but they had
stayed with it because it was clean
and quiet and because in all their
years of hunting they had become
very, very good at it.

"You really going to let the
elephants loose?" Lolie asked.

"Shit, no," Mick said. "That was
just to mess up Chazz's head a little.
We can't do nothing v/ith elephants.
Anyway, the cages probably got
alarms on them, too. But there's all
these animals loose out here, the
gazelles, the kangaroos. They ought to
keep us busy for a time." He chose an
arrow and laid it across the string.

Somewhere far away there was
the sound of a bark.

"Mick?" Chazz saiiJ. "Mick, did
Julie ever say anything iibout there be-
ing watchdogs in here?"

"You can't stop worrying for a
minute, eh, man?"

"I heard something bark."

"Coyote, maybe. Or one of those
dingo dogs from Austr2ilia. Or a dog
in the house, even."

"And if it's watchdogs?"

"If it is, we can hit them before
they hit us, right? They open their
yaps and we put an arrow down their
craws. Jesus, Chazz, lighten up!
Lighten up! No problem, man!" And
in one smooth gesture he brought his

bow up and sighted along the shaft
and put an arrow deep into the flank
of a gazelle far across the meadow.

The animal went about five feet
straight up and arched its back in
pain. When it came down, it tried to
run, toppled, crashed. Lolie let out a
whoop and brought down one of the
kangaroos, which rolled over and fur-
iously. lashed its huge tail against the
ground. Chazz, the best shot of the
three, sent his first arrow beautifully
through the long neck of one of the
llamas.

These animals knew nothing
about being hunted. But they must

have figured that something bad was
going on, because they started to
move in panicky little bursts, darting
in and out between the oak trees.
Mick nailed a second gazelle. Chazz
drew a bead on one of the peculiar
thick-shouldered goats.

Then he felt something like a
white-hot needle stab him in the
ankle, and he thought he would go
crazy with the pain.

"Oh, Jesus," he murmured, drop-
ping his bow and kneeling to grab his
blazing foot. "Oh, oh, Jesus!"

Mick looked over. "Chazz?
What — hey!"

"Holy Christ, like some kind of

giant ants all over the ground," Lolie
gasped. "Those suckers must be an
inch long. Chazz? Chazz?"

Chazz was rolling over and over,
pounding the ground with his fists.
There were ants on his arms and ants
on his face, and he was sobbing and
screaming. Weird, huge, evil-looking
red ants with long legs and tremen-
dous jagged-edged pincers, and what
looked like stingers at the ends of
their bodies; and when they stung, it
felt like fire. Mick was down, too,
and they were all over him. And then
Lolie. He fell to his knees, swaying
from side to side and slapping at the
enormous ants. He began to cough
and choke. The pain was hitting him
in waves, dizzying,, blinding, over-
whelming. "Mick?" he muttered.
"Chazz? Chazz?"

W hen Ned Branson came riding up
in his jeep, ten minutes after the
red light had gone on in the dis-
tant main house, the intruders
already were in bad shape.
Somehow they had managed to bypass
the perimeter alarm, but the thermal-
mass scanners in the meadow had
registered the presence of unauthorized
human intruders and that had auto-
matically opened the gate of the ant
colony. Not before the nitwits had
killed a few animals, Branson noted,
scowling. But they hadn't had time to
do much harm, and they certainly
weren't going to do any more. The
three of them were huddled in a twitch-
ing heap, vomiting and choking. Their
faces were swollen like balloons, black
balloons, and it looked like one of them
might be dead already. The ants were
having a picnic on them. Australian
bulldog ants, Myrmecia gulosa, the
deadliest ants in the world. Thirty
stings could kill a man in five minutes.

Branson unhitched the canister of
anesthetic foam and aimed the nozzle.
The foam came bubbling out. Too late
for those dumb bastards, he thought,
without regret. As the white foam en-
gulfed them, the ants halted their fren-
zy and quickly became comatose.
They'd stay that way until morning,
when he could collect them and put
them back in their colony. He didn't
want them running loose all over the
place, for God's sake. And in any case,
he certainly didn't want to lose them.
It hadn't been easy to get them here
in the first place. A lot of red tape,
and horrendous bribes for the import
license. Not to mention the staggering
field expenses to have them collected.
Ants of that species are pretty damned
rare, after all. ■

..I

‘I

Twilight Zone 25

On Important Days there were cheers

and hisses, crimson and gold
and the pleasures of the pack.

by BRUCE JAY FRIEDMAN

hough he knew he was the owner of an t;normous pow-
K er, he sensed quickly it was important i:o defer to the
K wiry little knot of energy who hopped upon his back
^ and guided him on the Important Days. He knew as
well that there were others like him, and he was at his most
comfortable when he was in their midst, smelling and brushing
up against them, feeling their length and sleekness against his own.

ILLUSTRATION BY ROBERT PIZZO

VPOST

\mia

His entire life seemed to be a
preparation for the Important Days. He
had done well on the first of these. He
knew this because the great babble that
came from a surrounding arc seemed
not to be directed at him, but at others
like him, and perhaps one in particular.
He would circle the large field and stay
tied snugly to the other shapes, part
of the flow, several in front of him,
some alongside, some behind. He en-
joyed being part of this communal sea.

The high point of his young exis-
tence came during one of the Impor-
tant Days when he was making his

final turn around the arc and slipped
back to a kind of tail-like position
with all the other shapes charging up
ahead. He attached,^ himself to their
energy and let them carry him along,
feeling free and passive. He knew he
had done something wonderful, be-
cause the sound from the surrounding
arc had a comfortable hissing and
booing quality to it, quite unlike the
aggressive babble to which he was ac-
customed. Nonetheless, he was puzzled
by the behavior of the controlling
knot who rode his back and seemed
displeased, twisting his flesh and final-
ly, applying a thwacking instrument
to the massive flanks that held his
engine-like power. He knew it was im-
portant not to invoke the displeasure
of this crabbed little force; so he pro-
mised himself that on the next of the
Important Days, he would forego the
darting, dipping, freewheeling pleasures
of the tail position.

It was a somewhat restricted life

but a good one. He was fed amply —
great bales of mash. Regularly, he was
given chances to defuse the tornado in
his flanks by running freely in open
greenery. On these occasions, a more
relaxed presence sat upon his back.
Despite these pleasant interludes, he
felt a sense of uneasiness and fore-
boding, though he could not locate its
source. In confirmation of these fears,
his fortunes took a rude downward
turn. On two successive Important
Days, he had been running comfort-
ably, lost in the foam of the other
shapes, when the small control knot
indicated by various kneading pressures
that he was to move in front of them.
Though this was well within his pow-
er, he resisted gently until the prod-
ding from above became commanding
and he was forced to comply. Sick
with humiliation, he left the comfort-
able flow and moved in front, naked.

vulnerable, outlawed, exposed to the
babble that — on both occasions — grew
deafening as he completed the final
arc. Throatless, impotent, he wanted
to cry out that this was not his deci-
sion— that there was no way for him
to attach himself once again to the
fleshlike stream and be sealed in its
midst.

On both occasions, disgraced, his
heart hanging low, he had been iso-
lated from the other shapes and_parad-
ed before the rising arc, the babble
thunderous, outrageous, filling his
great body and coating his skin.

His trials were not over. There
was yet another Important Day, per-
haps the most significant of all. There
was more clangour to it, a riot of col-
or; the circling arc was vast. As he
was led to the start of the running,
the din rose in waves of intensity, as
if to remind him that his shameful
past deeds had not been forgotten. As
if in further reminder of his infamy.

a double-winged mask was affixed to
him in such a way as to constrict his
vision. He had a secret pool of un-
tapped powei'; he vowed that on this
occasion he v/ould turn it in the direc-
tion of keeping himself hooked into
the flow of shapes on either side.

Through half of the running, he
succeeded in doing this, gliding, rock-
ing, a section of the stream, returning
to what now seemed his idyllic early
days. He could not tell whether the
soothing boos and hisses were strictly
designed for him, but he declared a
part of them for himself and basked
in the comfort of them. Then, sudden-
ly, the knott<;d-up force began to ap-
ply the pressures, grinding and pinch-
ing at him, ui ging him forward to that
lonely and humiliating position — ahead
of the other shapes. Momentarily, he
held back, flhoots of anger formed
within him, struggling to take root.
He channeled a portion of that loco-
motive power into a single humped
and resistant convulsion; but it was a
manoeuver that was alien to his docile
spirit. Pinching, kneading, grinding,
the choked little knot forced him for-
ward until he bent to its will. Instead
of inching forward, he made the deci-
sion, unopposed by the controlling
knot, to burst forward and race proud-
ly on toward his humiliation. Un-
leashing his full bank of energy, he
wondered all the while about the irony
of his having to apply this great birth-
given force to his own disgrace. Almost
enjoying the spectacle of his undoing,
he plunged even further ahead of the
other shapes until he was running
alone, once again, ironically buoyed up
by the thunderous babble of the arc
that seemed to form an hysterical rain-
bow above his treachery.

At the end of the running, his
disgrace total, he tried to cut short his
agony by insinuating himself into the
other friendly shapes, to return to that
familiar smell and feel so similar to his
own. But he was kept isolated and
led, once again, in a slow dumb
march before the arc. A small particle
of the arc ran forward and placed a
hot-colored slightly-brambled wreath
around his neck. Meekly, he dropped
his head and accepted the badge of
dishonor.

The aggr(!ssive babble rose, more
thunderous and compelling than be-
fore. Hellish lights half-blinded him.
Powerless, defeated, he kicked at the
dirt and tried with all the murky pow-
er of his being to fathom why he of
all creatures has been singled out to
lead a life of. such unrelenting shame
and ignominy. B

28 Twilight Zone

ILLUSTRATION BY JOHN BREAKEY

# / ome of you, at least,

m / will have met me. I'm
M / one of those grey-haired,
sliabby characters that
> knock on your door
after the funeral. They call
me the tut man. King 'Tut, I
^ like to think, but others

may disagree. House clear-
ance is my speciality, but
only after all the other vul-
tures and jackals have been.
“A lo.id of old tut," they say,
on viewing my market stall.
That's exactly what it is, and I'm
not ashamed of the fact. Seaside mugs
and rusted nutcrackers; a box of broken
candles; some old Christmas crackers,
the bangers, clamp. Personal items, such
as false teeth, reading glasses, and hear-
ing aids. Who buys such junk, you
ask? Well, I'll tell you. Under the last
layer of visible poverty is a market for
the goods: a hidden, desperate stratum
of society that fails to emerge for any-
one but me, the tut man. I can find
them as the ratcatcher's dog finds its
quarry. I nose them out.

There an; rewards to be had, even
in my lowly profession: spiritual as
well as financial. Let me tell you
about one — or don't, if you think a
tut man's got nothing to say you
haven't heard before. You'd be
wrong to make assumptions,
thc'Ugh. We've all got one
good story to tell. Especial-
ly if it's a ghost story.
Just over two weeks
ago I was called to visit
a client who had ga-

breath. I have
^ friend in the right

iililfi sets me these jobs
when a state

necessary. They
" \ pay me to see

Christmas crackers, damp bangers, chewed
pipes, and tattered union jacks — things only
a tut man could love. Mysteries only a tut
man could read.

by GARRY KILWORTH

30 Twilight Zone

is cleared
of all the rubbish
nobody else wants.

You can imagine the sort
of stuff I glean from these
and the kind of clients I collect.

Mine is the lonely old lady who
dies clutching the tattered union flag
she had waved at Edward's coronation.
I can sell that. Or the bitter old man
with his set of chewed pipes and plastic
model of the little Belgian boy which
pees into a glass when you fill him up
with beer. I can sell these, too. My
clients then are sentimental hoarders of
kitsch— and before you imeer, remember
you're not yet senile or gaga enough
to find these things important. Of
course. I'm not a philanthropist and for
me there is always the chance of find-
ing a rare stamp, or a silver pot, black
with disuse and missed by the antique
dealer. I do more of a service than the
others. 1 pick the bones clean. Anyway,
the story.

The house was a narrow terrace
with boarded-up windows in a heaving
sea of rubble. It had been separated
from its two neighbors by the use of
rough surgery and was about to un-
dergo similar demolition the following
morning. The authorities must have
been aware of the old man's terminal
illness and hung on to save a bit of
money in outpayments. The old boy
had had no surviving relatives.

I had been given a key and
I let myself in. The door
hadn't seen paint for a
decade arid had swollen
with the recent summer
rain. 1! left it wide

open. Sometimes there are aggressive
squatters inside, and I have no official
standing despite the haughty demeanor
I adopt on such occasions. The rooms
smelled of sickness and age, but
was a dry smell. I've been in
where the mold was
up the walls in
damp fingers. I noticed that
a dealer had already been:
the living room was empty
except for the curtains,
threadbare as hessian. I un-
hooked them from the re-
maining two or three sliders,
them carefully, and left
them by the front door. The
kitchen yielded a battered
milk saucepan, some spoons
that had lost their chrome,
a plastic bucket, and five
milk bottles. I took every-
thing, including the bottles.
After all, it was my job to see
the house was cleared. Had they
been dead cats I would have been
just as diligent. Apparently the
place had to be declared empty before
council's destroyers could move in
and chain.

stairs was a pile of tat-
ty clothes which was strongly suggest-
ive of the presence of a tom cat. My
torch beam found further evidence of
the animal's unfussy habits further
back, but what interested me more
was a cardboard box half-hidden by
the gas meter. I hooked it out
with my foot. I'm not
squeamish sort, you can't af-
ford to be in my profession,
but I wondered where that
old tom was keeping him-
self. They can be belliger-
ent creatures when suddenly
disturbed: as crabby and
spiteful as aging men. The
box was the kind of small
find which makes my work
interesting. It was full of
books and old pieces of
junk which had been stored
and apparently forgotten.

Suddenly, I was startled
by a noise like a gunshot
that reverberated through-
out the house. I dropped
the box and ran into the liv-
ing room to find the door had
slammed shut. I stared at it,
vaguely puzzled. The wind?
perhaps some passerby had .
tried the handle, but the wood was so
swollen I could not move it. At first
I was merely irritated and struggled
with the front door unsuccessfully
before trying the windows and the back

door. The latter had all been nailed
shut. Besides, the boards over the win-
dows were of stout, half-inch thick
timber. Thirty minutes went by and I
began to feel anxious. I looked around
for some implement to break through
the wood but there was nothing of any
strength left in the house.

I began to pace the floor as a
serious thought entered my mind. They
were going to demolish the house ear-
ly in the morning. It was then late
evening and would soon be dark. If I
could not make myself heard ... I
began shouting, "Help! Somebody,
please help!" until my throat was dry.
Through the slats over the window I
could see the crane with the huge metal
ball dangling from the gantry by a long
chain. Maybe, maybe I could get the
workmen to hear me in the morning,
but it was possible that none of them
would come near the house. The driver
might just climb into his crane, trun-
dle over, and begin smashing down the
walls of my prison.

I continued pacing the floor and
after a few minutes realized I was be-
ing followed. Nervously, and with a
prickling feeling in my temples, I
looked down. The cardboard box was
slithering in my wake. I stopped and
the box came to a sliding halt. Did the

floor slope? It was difficult to tell
since it was one of those rugged, con-
crete floors, raised amateurishly above
the original. I had the eerie feeling
that the box was waiting for some-
thing. Or was that my wandering old
brain? 1 thought perhaps there might
be some object in the box that would
assist me in my escape. I bent down
and began to rummage through its
contents. As I began to sift through
the junk I relaxed, the occupation be-
ing so natural to me I almost forgot
1 was trapped.

My first find was a bible — the
King James' version, not one of your
modern efforts. Personally, I never felt
comfortable with a bible unless the
text has plenty of thees and thous.
Most of my biblical knowlJdge was
learned by rote as a child, and I
stumbled when faced with newly-edited
verses. Once, in the course of my
work, 1 came across a pidgin English
bible in which the Lord's Prayer began
"Him number one big fella, up in sky
..." 1 suppose aboriginals are as en-
titled as I am to Christian religion, but
1 didn't see why they couldn't sweat
over the old text the same way I had
to as a six-year-old. It was just as in-
comprehensible to me at that age as
it would be to a foreigner with little
English.

Inside the cover of the bible was
an inscription: "To the Reverend Ashly
Allendale, Christmas 1937." Under this
appeared an indecipherable signature.

Reverend, eh? I thought. A vicar.
Did they die like this, alone and im-
poverished? All the vicars I had
known had worked until they dropped
at the altar. Perhaps the bible and the
man who had died had not belonged
to one another. I checked the envelope
on which I had scribbled the address
and the name. Mr. Allendale, it said.
Had he been unfrocked or had the
passage of time smoothed away his
old title? No reason, of course, why
some of them shouldn't get tired of
preaching, the same way other people
get fed up with their jobs. So the man
had been a vicar. I delved into the
box again and came out with three
photograph albums.

The first of them took me on the
journey of a lifetime, from a smiling
dog-collared young man, to an old but

gentle-faced Anglican who had dedi-
cated his mortality to the service of
the Lord. Clergymen often have the
kind of face that reveals a history. I
know if I had met the naked Ashly in
the desert, I would have taken one
look at his buck teeth, glasses, and
unruly thatch of short hair and said,
"Mornin', Vicar." Probably the oppo-
site could have been said of me. May-
be Ashly could have pointed to a pile
of clothes at a jumble sale and re-
marked, "They belonged to a tut
man." We all have our labels.

The photographs, at first very
grainy and of poor quality but
gradually improving in definition —
though not necessarily more profes-
sional from an artistic standpoint —
were all of christenings. Through the

The

photographs
were of births,
marriages, and
deaths. Ciick,
ciick, click.

And that was
your life.

years, Ashly Allendale had collected
pictures of himself baptising innumer-
able infants, all looking the same in
long, white shifts. Most of them were
crying. I flicked through the pages try-
ing to detect some differences in the
walnut faces that began in 1906 and
ended with the last, a color photo-
graph dated 1970, but it could have
been the same baby every time.

Where were all those infants
now? Scattered over the earth: some
still at school, some grown, some al-
most certainly dead. Recorded here
was a lifetime of crossing foreheads
with holy water and hoping the reci-
pient did not turn out to be a mur-
derer or a coward; a wifebeater or a
prostitute; a Catholic convert or a
suicide.

The second album was similar to
the first, except that it was weddings.

and the smile on Ashly's face was a
little more wistful. It seemed to me that
I had got them the wrong way around.
I should have looked first at this album
and then tried to tie in the babies with
the parents; match one small round face
with two larger faces.

The thinJ and last album was the
thinnest and definitely the most in-
triguing of them all. I don't mind ad-
mitting I found the thing a bit grisly
at first. Macabre, if that isn't too old
a fashioned word for you. It was fun-
erals, of course. Not many, but
enough in a full career to fill a slim
volume. They were almost all news-
paper cuttings, as crisply-dry as dead
leaves. Dignitaries would be the sub-
jects of the yellowing clippings. The
average family does not usually re-
quire a photograph of the burial of
one of its members, but the local press
often required spacefillers. They were
monochrome, of course, as befits a
passing on. Dark shapes against dark
skies. Unreal, and dire in their sobri-
ety. Obviously the camera angles, often
vertically oblique, were such as to at-
tempt to induce a mood into the scenes,
but there was more than that. Surely
people were buried on sunny as well
as storm-clouded days? Yet all the cut-
tings showed skies in a state of tur-
moil. Maybe they doctored the prints
in the dark room afterwards to add a
touch of Vic:torian drama?

Births, marriages, deaths. Perhaps
I had not got them the wrong way
around after all but had, in three
stages, the most important fragments
of a lifetime? Three flashes in the
history of a woman or man; a hun-
dredth-of-a-second, click, click, click.
This is your life. One, two, three, all
gone. Anonymous histories, since all
the captions had been removed from
the sombre black-and-white records of

32 Twilight Zone

the day of reckoning.

All those grief -stricken faces, too,
and tears. No smiling Ashly in these
pictures. A grave face for a grave oc-
casion. Obviously he had treasured his
albums, my newly-found Anglican
vicar, which caused me to wonder
even more about the apparent mutila-
tions. With only one or two excep-
tions, the funeral photographs had
been attacked by the hand of a child
wielding colored crayons.

There was no evidence to suggest,
either way, that Ashly Allendale had
been married and had children. Of
course, he may have had nephews and
nieces who could lay their hands on the
precious collections, but somehow he
did not seem the sort of man who
would be careless witfi his treasures.
And why was it only the funeral album
that had been vandalized? Why not the
weddings and christenings, too? And
the precise nature of tfie markings in-
dicated definite targets for the colors.

I studied the pictures more closely
in the light of my torch and my puz-
zlement increased. Although the artist
had been careless, his or her talents
had been confined exclusively to the
faces of stone angels; more particular-
ly to the eyes on those images. Was
there a touch of black magic at work
here? Perhaps the remote desecration
of sacred ground?

1 placed the album with its com-
panions and began emptying the other
items out of the box. Soon I had all
the pieces ranged across a rug in my
parlor. It was then I realized I had,
once again, been fortunate. The box
had yielded its plenty: seven pairs of
spectacles of which the oldest had solid
gold frames. It was not a reward, for
I had not earned it, but something
much more pleasurable. It was a find.
Since a boy I had collected things:

seashells, matchbox labels, cigarette
cards. There has always been an on-
rush of joy which accompanies an
unexpected rare addition to my collec-
tions. As a child I would turn over a
rock on the shore and yell with de-
light at the sight of a tapestry cone.
Or perhaps walking, eyes ever on the
ground, I would find a matchbox face
down in the gutter. The utter, speech-
less joy that flooded my heart at the
discovery of a brand no other boy yet
owned . . . well. I'm jaded, of course,
but the feeling, however muted, still
finds me out. Its origin is mercenary
now, so I carefully wrapped the spec-
tacles in question in a soft yellow
cloth, intending to see them at the
first opportunity.

Suddenly, I remembered my pre-

All those
grief-stricken
faces, too, and
tears. Grave
faces for grave
occasions. No
smiiing
Ashiy here.

dicament. 1 still had to get out of the
house. But 1 had my torch. 1 could
shine it through the slats on the win-
dows. Perhaps someone would see it
and investigate? There was a sound by
my feet and looking down I saw that
the other pairs of glasses were arranged
in a neat row. I thought: I don't re-
member doing that. The arrangement
was curious because, on closer inspect-
ion, I could see that they were arranged
in order of the thickness of their
lenses. Surely that was not coinci-
dence? Too incredible. I considered
the slamming door and the slithering
box. The wind? A sloping floor? Or
was there something that was required
of me? Some sinister task?

"Allendale," 1 yelled, not without
a feeling of foolishness. "Let me out!"
A waterpipe on the kitchen wall sud-
denly tore loose from its fittings and

swung down. A lump came to my
throat instantly and I almost choked
on my fear. The waterpipe came to
rest at an angle which had its open
end pointing at the spectacles. I swal-
lowed my fright and after a few mo-
ments realized that 1 had to study the
glasses. For what? A puzzle? Did I
have to solve a puzzle to ensure my
release? I pored over them, from the
lightest to the pebble-heavy pair with
the black horn rims. This would have
been the order in which Ashly had
worn them, for seldom does a man's
eyesight improve with age. The sad
end to the story was obvioust Ashly
had steadily lost his vision toward the
latter part of his life. There was also
very little wear on the black horn
rims, which indicated that he had died
totally blind — otherwise they would
not have been in the box with the
other specs; they would have been
with the items found on the corpse.

Blind.

I reached out and opened the
funeral album and studied again the
colored angels' eyes. The crudeness of
the artistry need not have been due to
lack of craftsmanship but perhaps to
the rapidly failing sight and frail hands
of an old man. I pondered for a few
minutes, turning over the pages slow-
ly, trying to see some pattern. It did
not come to me immediately, although
perhaps you have already guessed.
Remember, 1 am offering you clues
which I had to discover for myself.

I replaced the contents of the box
and turned out the light. Standing
there in the dark 1 saw, as it were, my
unwitting benefactor's problem and
fear — the angels were blind. I switched
on the light again and the final clue
was presented to me. A paperback
book entitled The Ancient Greeks,
which dealt with the golden age of

Twilight Zone 33

Greece, flew open, as if in a draft.
The pages rippled over until the book
lay still. The writing on the page was
heavily underlined, and reading the
section, I discovered, as had Ashly,
that the ancient Greeks did not leave
their beautiful marble statues in their
natural state, as we see them today,
but decorated them in gorgeous col-
ors. They painted on the clothes, and
the features, including the eyes.

Written in the margin of the page
were some pencilled notes, such as you
find in old volumes of Tennyson or
Keats. The scrawl read: "See Oxford
Ed. of Indian Myth. Death's Eye Cult."

An eyeless man whose interest
had been awakened by cults and who
believed in sight beyond death. What
did it all mean? What was I supposed
to do?

"Ashly!" My words echoed round
the empty-roomed house. "If you're
dead, show me what it's like."

Suddenly, I could not see. Panic
ran riot in my breast. I almost choked
on my fear. Was this revenge on the
living? Was he reaching out from the
grave, robbing me of my sight? Blind.
It was a terrible sensation. The black-
ness seemed tangible, suffocating.

I fought for control of my feel-
ings. No, no. I had asked him what
death was like and he was showing
me. He wasn't vindictive. He needed
my help. He had merely turned out
the lights, and I was experiencing the
blackness of the grave, experiencing
what he had to face for the whole of
eternity.

"What do you want?" I cried.

The lights went on again and re-
lief flooded through me. I could see.

He wanted his sight back. But
how was that possible? What could I
do to help him?

"Show me. Show me what I must

do!"

One of the scrap books began to
ripple, the pages turning over. A sense
of frustration rose in me as they flashed
from one to the other. Then they came
to rest on a page which showed a
gravestone angel with the eyes crayoned
in. Blue eyes. Seeing eyes.

It suddenly dawned on me.

"You want an angel like that? On
your grave. To see with?"

The lights
flashed and a
rapturous note
wailed from
the waterpipe,
as if wind
were blowing
across its end.

The lights flashed on and off
rapidly and a rapturous note wailed
from the waterpipe, as if wind were
blowing across the opening at its end.

So that's all he wanted; someone
to place a painted angel on his grave.
Someone to return his sight to him, so
that he could witness the changing
seasons. The angel was to be his eyes.
Sight by proxy. That which was stolen
from him in life, he wanted to reclaim
in death.

"All right! Tomorrow. I'll do it
tomorrow."

A cold draft blew about my
ankles. I stood, nervously, in my own
torchlight, beginning to suspect I had
been making an idiot of myself at a
time when I should have been employ-

ing my wits to better use, when the
front door suddenly flew open.

The following morning when I
awoke, I telephoned the three stone
masons listed in the Yellow Pages to
enquire whether someone had recently
ordered a colored angel for a grave.
I received various replies, two of them
rather brusqu«' — and negative. I then
called my original informant and asked
where the Rev. Ashly Allendale had
been interred. I was given the name of
a cemetery.

"I see," I said into the mouthpiece.
"Tell me, are they very fussy there
about the headstone? I mean, if he
had wanted ar elaborate effort, would
they object?"

'They did,' was the reply. 'The old
boy's will said he wanted a figure
erected on the tomb, but they wouldn't
allow it. Being a state funeral he went
into the new c:emetery on the far side
of town. They don't permit headstones,
not the vertical type anyway. You
have to have one of those slabs that
lie flush with I he ground, so that they
can run a mower round the edges. It's
a lawn cemetery."

I replaced the receiver. Poor Ashly.
Dead and blind and no hope of re-
covery from either. 1 shrugged. What
could I do about it? Even if I were to
order a painted angel they wouldn't let
me put it on his grave.

But a tut: man doesn't give up
easily. He woi'ries a problem until he
has it cornered, and it either goes for
his throat or he gets it into the bag.
Anyway, I was damned if 1 wanted
Ashly back again. The solution came
to me as 1 drcve past the place where
the old romantic had been laid to rest
in eternal solitary confinement. I no-
ticed that the graves were not com-
pletely undecorated. I went to the
nearest florist and asked a lot of silly
questions but eventually came up with
the goods: a small potted shrub with
bright blue flowers which the assistant
assured me the Austrians call Die
Augen Der Enge/s — angels' eyes. It
took it back to the graveyard and
planted it in the hole they leave in the
middle of the slab. Every spring, and
on through summer, Ashly would be
able to see the world he had left
behind. Not that I think the world
amounts to anything worth, looking
at, but, hell, the old vicar had done
me a favor with the goldrims, and if
it put his soul to rest, well, it was a
small return. .Anyway, I sold the pot
the plant had been in that very morn-
ing, off the s:all. A few pence here,
a few pence there — it's not to be
wasted. ■

34 Twilight Zone

]

fortmiP

EDWARD

LARABEE

Edward would let nothing prevent
him from claiming his birthright.
Nothing. Not even the ghostly
presence of his mother.

he came again last
k night to stand at the

^ foot of my bed. The

French doors to the
balcony were open for
the night air, and when I woke with
a start there she was, moonlight
bathing both of us in ghostly cold
light.

Her hair was loose, flowing white
around her shoulders, and she wore
the old brown dressing gown 1 had
always loathed. Both hands were
clasped under her chin; as I watched,
she stretched her arms toward me and
her lips began to move. A perfect tor-
rent of words appeared to rush along
the bed toward me, but, of course, I
heard no sound.

As I recovered from the sudden
awakening, I watched her. Not with
fear, as on her first appearances, but
rather with curiosity, a certain wry
amusement, and a growing irritation
with her theatrics. She was beginning
to tire me with her presence — I wanted
done with her, once and for all. How
she seemed to entreat me, how be-
seechingly her old eyes met mine. The
dressing gown's sleeves flapped and
swooped like birdwings as her gestures

by BARBARA OWENS

broadened and grew more dramatic.
Finally, firmly, I interrupted.

"Mother, please. Go away. Stop
bothering me. You're dead — I killed
you. There's nothing either of us can
do to change that, so have the cour-
tesy to leave me in peace."

An annoying factor in attempting
communication with a ... presence.
I've found, is the difficulty in doing
so. Her silent monologue continued
until, with a sigh, I rose from my bed.
The possibility of confrontation al-
ways seemed to frighten her — un-
doubtedly she remembers how she met
her end. Last night it succeeded again.
With widened eyes, she backed away
from me until she melted into the
shadows at my bedroom door.

Once aroused, however, I could
not return to sleep. Alone in the dark
I enjoyed the comfort of my home,
the Larabee estate, governed and
cherised by my family for generations.
With great pride I reviewed my his-
tory, pausing before each portrait lin-
ing the grand front stairway. Edward
I, fierce in his whiskers; Edward II
with the monocle he affected; Edward
III, who lived grandly and died
young; Edward IV, my father, weak

36 Twilight Zone

PHCrrOGRAPH BY TETSU OKUHARA

?< '
jr

chin sadly confirming the whole of his
nature.

My portrait was missing. She had
removed it again, a gesture designed
to pester me in death as she had
pestered me in life. I spent the better
part of the night searching, finally
coming upon it hidden deep within the
recesses of the attic, face against the
wall. I hung it in its proper place —
Edward Larabee V, sole heir to the
vast family fortunes and finally master
of his fate — although it had taken a
slight act of violence to accomplish.
Regarding my own distinguished coun-
tenance, 1 was pleased. Things were
once again as they should be, and 1
could sleep.

T oday I walked alftng the
river path and through the
fields nearest town. It was
a walk I had taken many
times as a boy with my
father, before we became estranged
from one another. At that tender age
I believed him to be the most impor-
tant and influential man in the world,
and I took his advice and plans for my
future very seriously. All our times
together were devoted to my training
as his successor, both in action and
philosophy, and I listened carefully to
everything he said, to me and to his
workers, the men and women who
tended the fields and maintained the
accumulation of buildings, gardens, and
livestock that had increased and passed
from father to son since the country
was young.

At one point along the river, a
bluff rolled up to a lookout point
adorned by a single giant oak, and
under this tree my father had a stone
bench constructed. In our walks we
always paused at this spot to sit and
survey the river and lands beyond.
Each time I thrilled, realizing that
everything I saw ("And then some,"
my father would add) belonged to my
father and would someday belong to
me. At a very early age, this became
my obsession — the control and expan-
sion of the Larabee empire. While
other boys swam in the river and
chased one another, hooting, through
the streets of town, I devised strategies
to increase the Larabee holdings, both
for my own satisfaction and for my

son's. I vowed to pass to him a power
and fortune so vast that it could not
be curtailed by anything or anyone.

I stopped at the stone bench to-
day. It was early. Grey mist still clung
to the river, shrouding the lands
beyond. I reflected on those early
walks with my father, and how quick-
ly I'd come to recognize his weakness-
es, which had diluted the position
passed to him from his fathers. As I
matured, I studied his methods close-
ly, analyzing their threat to my in-
heritance. The twentieth century was
new, the country growing again after
the Civil War. Opportunities were un-
limited for aggressive men with power
and money, but my father was too
timid, and certainly not interested in
ideas from someone so young as I.

And he was soft with his work-
ers. Even as a boy, I saw how they
cheated him, lied to him, blatantly
stole from him. He told a story of his
grandfather — of how Edward II had
caught a worker stealing a pig from
his sty and shot him dead as he stood.
I respected this outlook and determined
to emulate it; thus our estrangement
began. I thought it fortunate that he
died when I was scarcely twenty. I
had a lifetime to repair the damage
and oversee the growth of my empire.

Unfortunately, I had not consi-
dered my mother's part in all this.
Truthfully, I had never thought much
about my mother at all. I knew that
my grandfather, Edward III, had fierce-
ly opposed the marriage. She was of
inferior stock, unworthy of the Lara-
bee name. Grandfather considered her

to be an unwise influence on my
father, but his early death defeated his
vow to prevent the union. And I, sad
to say, wasn't aware of the strength of
her influence until after my father's
death. That shock took years to over-
come. When at last I did, and realized
she seemed set to live forever, there
was no alternative. She had to die.
And die she did, by my Larabee hand.
Yet still she shows herself to me, a
pesky gnat who continues to annoy
me with her refusal to retire gracefully
and leave me to my Larabee right.

S he surprised me today. I had
just come in from a review
of tfie stables, well pleased
with their appearance. The
horses were sleek and lively,
the premises scrupulously maintained.
In passing, I cibserved the men work-
ing with vigor, but I saw no need to
address them, and they are not allowed
to speak to me without permission.
The results of my management con-
stantly reaffirm my conviction that a
firm hand is superior to my father's
passivity. I am seldom dissatisfied
with my men.

In the great dining room I stopped
before the Larabee collection of silver,
wanting to be sure it was not in need
of polish. Wiien I turned she was
there, standing by the doors into the
main garden, eyes fixed on me.

She'd never come to me in day-
light before, and I was struck instantly
by how old ;ind ugly she appeared.
Her dress was long and bulky, of
some dull, unflattering shade, and her

38 Twilight Zone

darkened. I was shocked that this had
not been reported to me and that I had
not noticed it before. True, the house
is well over one hundred fifty years
old, but I was surprised at myself for
being so lax. But then, the entire ex-
terior needs refurbishing. Several cracks
in the stone walls are visible upon close
inspection. I shall issue the order to
begin repairs at once.

As I strolled the woods bordering
the main drive this morning, I thought
I saw Mother passing in a carriage.
Fog lay thick among the trees, and 1
was just remembering the scores of
squirrels and rabbits I'd bagged there
as a boy, when I glimpsed something
moving up the drive. 1 could have
sworn it was the old carriage, and
that Mother and another person were
aboard, but then the mist swallowed
them and my ears registered no sound.
It would be just like her to manifest
another . . . presence ... to assist her
in her haunting, but I'm impressed if
thin hair was knotted carelessly on top She backed away, head shaking, she has somehow managed to produce

of her head. Her face was shrunken mouth still working. How I wished I a horse and carriage!

and wrinkled. She looked at me, clutch- could hear what she wanted to say.

ing her chest with one hand and cov- "Survived. That was your mistake. I've experienced a light bout with

ering her face with tire other. She Mother. It was a long time coming, but fever for the past several days. It was

looked so harmless and I felt so jaunty it began right here on that day." not serious, only a slight weakness

that I initiated one of our meaningless She was gone, through the doors and blurring of vision; at times every-

conversations. into the sunlit brilliance of the garden. thing seemed vague and indistinct. My

"Well, here you are again. Moth- How many more times, I wondered, movements faltered, so I kept to my

er. I was just admiring my silver." She before she concedes and goes on to bed. I feel much stronger today,

raised her head, lips moving, but since wherever it is she has to go? She must Last night she appeared again at

neither of us could hear the other, I see I'm determined and not the least the foot of my bed. I was awake, rest-

saw no need to stop. "A grand collec- frightened of her. less with the fever, but I didn't see her

tion, don't you agree? Do you know As I passed the stairway on my until suddenly she was there. She

its worth? I do — to the penny. I like way to the library, again I noted the seemed different. From her expression

to come here and admire it, but you absence of my portrait on the wall. she seemed to be reasoning with me

know that, don't you?" This time I unearthed it in the root instead of pleading, and her eyes looked

Her mouth twisted: one shaking cellar, and there was a dark smudge sharper. She studied me closely as I

finger pointed at itie. I thought 1 saw across the nose. It is in its place again, smiled back at her from my pillow,

tears glistening on her cheeks. What- and I have managed to retain my "Beware of confidence. Mother. Yes,

ever she was saying, she was most humor despite this whole silly busi- I've been unwell, but no harm done,

certainly in earnest. ness. After all. I'm here and she's Already I'm feeling better, and tomorrow

"In fact, it was in this room that there. One of us has to lose. And I'm I'll be up minding my empire again."

your downfall began. Mother. You the Larabee, not she. I raised a hand to shoo her away,

found me here, review: ng the silver, but she was already gone. I dozed a

before we were to assemble for the ~^^ow, three days later, she bit, then something urgently roused

reading of Father's will. What pleasure has become more notice- me, and I hurried as best I could in

it must have given you to reveal that able by her absence. Per- my condition to the lower floor. My

he had left everything ir your control. I haps it is finished. I've portrait's absence struck me as I passed

Not a penny could I lay my hands on ^ been spending long hours and I found it in the drawing room

without your permission, not one mi- in the study going over my overseer's fireplace where she had attempted to

nor decision make unless it passed records and accounts. I have found no burn it. The fire had gone out, but the

your approval. Remember my shock, discrepancies, but the work is not as edges still smouldered. There was no

Mother, not to mention dismay? detailed as I specified. He shall hear time for anger. I put out the glowing

Father wasn't sure of rry capabilities, about it in very plain language. remains with my bare hands and re-

you said; he strongly disapproved of This afternoon, as I passed the placed it at once, leaving the blackened

my methods. I couldn't understand back steps rising to the kitchen, I frame and scorched spots on the canvas

how you managed it. I tried for years glanced up to see that a large portion as a reminder that I wouldn't be ban-

to break the provisiors, remember? of the stone cornice over the kitchen ished so easily. She truly tries my pa-

But you had done well. I was power- door had fallen. It appeared to be an Hence, this . . . presence. She should

less as long as you survived." old fracture. The exposed edges had remember she can push me only so far.

Twilight Zone 39

Although autumn is upon us, the
sun was warm in the front garden to-
day. I sat on the stone bench beside
the fountain and let it restore the re-
mainder of my lost strength. I am not
quite back to my old self, but am
ready to continue my responsibilities.

She wouldn't let me rest, even
there. I spotted her in the shadow of
the lilacs. For the first time she didn't
begin her incomprehensible mouthings.
She just stood watching me, and I
thought I saw a sadness in her face.
She wore a dark dress of some thick
material and a man's heavy sweater.
After a moment, she turned and
vanished into the trees.

On the day she died she wore a
blue dress, I remember. I found her
seated on that same stone tfench by
the fountain. She had been working in
the roses, and I made my announce-
ment without amenities or preamble.
So I clearly remember her face when
I told her.

"I've been so dedicated to my
struggles with you over the family
holdings, and so determined to keep
you from destroying the work of gen-
erations, that I've reached forty
without realizing I have no heir. You
can't live forever. I must prepare for
the Larabee future. 1 will marry within
the month."

Her mouth opened, gaping like a
fish, but I didn't heed her.

"I'm aware of what people think
of me, but that is part of the Larabee
inheritance. Popularity is of no conse-
quence to me. I have rendered a pro-
posal to Emily Farrow, which she has
accepted. Emily is no prize, I grant
you, but that is of no consequence
either. She will provide a male heir.
I realize I cannot control the Larabee
fortunes so long as you live, but I must
insist that you gather your belongings
and take up residence elsewhere upon
my marriage. I do not want you living
here. This is my house, not yours."

Her mouth gaped again, and she
made a foolish sound — half gasp, half
sigh. "Edward, you can't marry!”

"What do you mean, I cannot
marry?"

She twisted on the bench, look-
ing embarrassed and hesitant, as
well she might.

"The provisions of your father's

will — could you have forgotten? If
you marry, you are disinherited with-
out appeal. It's most unfortunate that
your father was so disappointed in
you, Edward. He was adamant in his
conviction that there should be no
more Larabees. Upon the death of his
last surviving heir, the Larabee hold-
ings are to be dispersed at public auc-
tion."

How clearly I remember the
thoughts raging through my head at
that instant. Truly I did not recall
hearing that stipulation, I had been so
stunned at the disclosure that the Lara-
bee millions would be in her hands, not
mine. I was convinced she had some-
how caused all my misfortune. My
father could never have been so clever
and cruel. He had been weak, but he
was a Larabee. There was the blood
of prestige and power in his veins.

She moved away from me then,
and as she passed from view behind
the corner of the house, I was quick
to follow. There was no rage in my
heart, only the clear calculation that I
must be rid of her before I could take
stock of this incredible dilemma.

I reached her at the kitchen door
and made do with the only weapon at
hand — the heavy iron poker used for
firing up the laundry kettle in the
yard. She looked behind and saw me.
The first blow fell wild. She sank to
her knees, and the poker struck the
house with terrible force. I wish I
could remember the second blow, the
one that killed her. That memory
would satisfy me greatly. But I don't
remember it. A great roaring filled my
ears at that point, and the triumph is
gone from my mind. A pity. It would
make revenge sweeter now, as 1 enjoy
the fruits of the Larabee fortune and
she returns to reproach me helplessly
from beyond.

I woke slowly, thinking I heard
voices. There was no moon. My
room lay in darkness, but a
ghostly rectangle signified the out-
lines of my open bedroom door.
Then voices, where there had been
none but mine since the day my mother
died. I sat up in bed, strangely dis-
oriented. Shadows around me seemed
to waver, familiar forms to distort and
fade away.

I heard my mother's voice. Hers
and another's — a woman's deep voice,
soothing, flowing. She was calling to
me: "Edward, Edward Larabee, come
to us. Come to us, Edward, we're
waiting for you."

I closed my eyes as sudden faint-
ness seized me, but the voice con-

“This is my
home!” !
shouted, and
the sound of
my voice
matinified,
shrieking
from every
crevice in
the room.

tinued to call, and I experienced an
urge to obey so strong that I found
myself outside in the second floor
hallway before I was fully aware of
my actions. My weakness intensified.
I was forced to support myself against
the wall as my trembling legs carried
me closer to :he stairway and toward
the warm compelling voice.

It rose from below. As I neared
the head of the stairway, I saw light
flickering through the double doorway
of the great dining room. The voice
emanated from there: "Come, Edward,
come. Come to us. Were waiting."

It drew me. I seemed powerless to
resist. Then I heard my mother's
voice.

"Hurry! Hurry, please. I'm so
frightened!"

I stoppeiJ, swaying, one hand
firmly on the banister. In all her ap-
pearances, during all her grotesque
mouthings, 1 had been unable to hear
her voice. Wfiy was I hearing it now?
I felt no fear, only a vague disquiet
and alarm at my unsteadiness. Was 1
having a recurrence of the fever?

The voice bore me along. I was
descending the stairway, feeling my
way carefully with each step. My
fingers brushed the faces of my

40 Twilight Zone

opened her eyes.

"Yes," she continued, voice lulling,
calm, pushing against me in firm, gen-
tle waves. "You must go, Edward. You
do not belong here. I have paved the
way for you. Now, tonight, you will
leave this place and rest in your pro-
per home."

"This is my home!" 1 shouted, and
again the sound of my voice magni-
fied, shrieking from every crevice in
the room. My vision dimmed. I felt
quite ill, and my mother looked ready
to faint.

"No," the woman sighed. I struggled
to see her in my fading sight. "No
more. No more is this your home.
You cannot stay here. You will obey
me. I have visited this house before,
uttered the words that weakened your
hold. You cannot resist. You must do
as 1 say. 1 am going to send you
home, Edward. Go in peace. You will
not return."

The candles flickered, dimmed. I
could scarcely see the two figures at
the table; my head swam alarmingly.

"You damnable woman!" 1 thought
1 roared the words, but only a weak
whisper drifted to my ears. "How have
you accomplished this evil thing? You
are dead! I killed you with my own
hands!"

"No! No! No!" my mother
shrieked, hands flailing wildly. "It is
ancestors. Where my portrait hung, but anger gave me the power to stride you, Edward, you who are dead! You

they encountered smooth blank into the room, and my mother moaned, tried t« kill me, yes, but struck and

wall. Blast the woman! I would be shrinking from my approach. dislodged the cornice over the door. It

done with her tonight, one way or The fat woman did not open her fell on you. You are dead, Edward!

another. eyes. "Wait, Edward. Do not come Oh, please, please go. I cannot bear

"Come, Edward. Gloser. Closer." closer," she said, and 1 was stopped, one more glimpse of that great bloody

1 stood in the open doorway and planted in my place. wound in your head!"

saw them, seated at the far end of the "What are you doing here?" 1 I felt myself reeling backward,

grand table. My mother's eyes met managed. My anger increased. How suffocating. No. How could it be?

mine. She gasped, and her hands flew dare these two desecrate my home! Lies! 1 was Edward Larabee V, this

to her throat. She looke;d ancient, hag- "My patience is ended. Go away at woman had all but destroyed my life,

gish. Lighted candles danced before once!" and now —

them on the table, their light striking This was directed to my mother, My mother sobbed, covering her

the Larabee silver in their cabinets but the fat woman answered. Mother eyes. I seemed to fall backward, only

with a thousand blows and piercing cowered in her chair, staring eyes dimly hearing the fat woman

my eyes like many needles. 1 made a fixed on me. crooning.

distasteful sound, causing my mother "No," the woman said. "You must "Go now, Edward. You cannot

to utter a little scream. understand. It is you who must go. resist. Do not return, do not return.

"Is he here?" You, Edward. You must leave this Leave this place, Edward Larabee, I

She sat at my mother's elbow, place and you must not return." command you. Go now. Go." She

head reclining against the chair's high Her voice flowed through me, lapsed then into a foreign tongue, and

back, eyes closed. She was fat, enor- filled me, and I felt obliged to follow as the words closed around me, I felt

mously billowed, face flat and squashed her bidding, but my Larabee pride myself fall.

like the pug dog we htid when 1 was held me. No . . . presence was going Slowly, endlessly. Sight and sen-

a boy. 1 felt an instant's amazement to force me from my rightful place. sation deserted me. All figments of the
that such a wondrous voice could "No," I said in quite a reasonable figures seated at my table, of my Lara-

issue from that body. tone, but the sound was distorted in bee home, my birthright, dissolved.

"Yes!" my mother shrilled like the confines of the room — rose, rever- This place where I have settled is

some silly bird. "He's here! Quickly— berated, groaned like a wail from be- strange and cold. Cold. It is exceed-

please, do it now!" yond the grave. My mother cried out, ingly cold. Everything I have known

I was almost overcome by waves clapping her hands against her ears. is gone. I am alone here. No one even

of faintness growing more ominous. The fat woman neither flinched nor knows my name. ■

Twilight Zone 41

ILLUSTRATION BY JOHN BREAKEY

Judd had a fasfe for the
creamy stuff. It was foamy
and white and he took it
through a straw. Constantly.

by DONALD R. BURLESON

W ell, I must say — you've all told
some great stories. Yeah, 1
know it's my turn. But hey,
look, it's getting pretty late,
isn't it? No, no. I'm not just trying to weasel
out of it — come on, Carl, you know me better
than that. I've got a story, but I don't know
that I ought to tell it. The way it was told to
me still gives me the creeps when I think about
it. I'm not being theatrical, Barbara; it really
does.

I heard it during that trip to southern New
Hampshire three years ago. The old man who
told me the story was a genuine old down east
type, had lived near Bangor, Maine, but moved
in with his daughter and her husband when his
wife died some years before; they lived up
in Merrimack, north of Nashua, in an
area called Reeds Ferry. I ran into him
in a little Nashua bar the night
before I started home. There
was a hell of a storm that
night, and on my way back
to my motel I ducked in there
to get out of the snow and
maybe have a little something to
warm up my insides.

42 Twilight Zone

I was standing there stamping the
snow off my shoes, and there he was,
thin and grey and wrinkled, wearing
jeans and an oversized sweater, and
sitting sort of vacant-looking over a
beer. There weren't many people in
the place, so we got to talking, and
got around to this story of his by
chance; once we were into it, he
seemed to need to tell it. I know
damned well what you're going to say
when you hear it — you're going to say
it was a regular scam, a standard joke
played on out-of-staters to see if we'd
swallow such garbage, and no doubt
they all had a good, hearty, Yankee
laugh afterwards. Well, actually, I
hope to God you're right, because I
don't want to believe any o^ it ever
really happened. But the way he told
it, and that look he had in his eyes —
hell, he was even sweating at the end,
and his hands were shaking; they
weren't when he started. If it was an
act, it was a good one. I wish I could
really think that's all it was. Anyhow,
just remember. I'm only telling this be-
cause you asked. Roger, why don't
you put another log on the fire? It's
getting cold in here.

I was thawing out my gizzard
with a good glass of scotch, and to
make idle conversation I had been
asking the old man about where he
lived in Reeds Ferry. He seemed glad
to have somebody to talk to. Funny,
we never even asked each other's
name, now that I think of it. But I did
ask him something else, for no partic-
ular reason; it almost makes me be-
lieve in fate, because I don't think he'd
have brought it up otherwise. But I
did ask.

"Have any close neighbors up
your way?"

A kind of cloud seemed to pass
over his face, and he looked thought-
ful for a moment, as if I had jarred
loose a flood of memories. He took
another sip of his beer and said,
"Well, sir, I did have some close
neighbors."

"Oh?"

"Ayuh. Judd and Linda Morris,
next house down the road. Judd, he
was young enough to be my grand-
son, but we had us some right nice

talks sometimes. Linda, she was a
pretty little lady and a good wife for
Judd. They hadn't had no children.
Way things turned out, I'd say it's just
as well."

His use of the past tense aroused
my curiosity; sometimes, too, a bit of
scotch on an empty stomach will
make me a more willing listener, I
guess, even to stories that don't start
off sounding too interesting. So I
asked, "Why? What happened to
them?"

He peered out into the storm as
if looking for an answer there. All
you could see was a streetlamp stand-
ing alone in the snow. Without look-
ing back at me, the old man said, "It
was somethin' damned strange." In
profile, his wrinkled face had an ex-
pression that seemed to say: Look —
I'm too old and too tired to have to
think about this again; but now I
guess I'll have to, and maybe I should.

I had a guilty feeling now, unwit-
tingly dragging open some strange old
wound, maybe, but before I could say
anything he went on.

"Judd Morris was a smart young
fellow, had hisself a good job. Him
and Linda, they had a good time,
goin' on trips together, enjoyin' life.
Laughed and joked a lot. They had
theirselves a little family joke about a
habit of Judd's."

"What was that?"

"Well, Judd, he loved milk, drunk
it like they owned a whole barn full
of cows. And he always drunk it with
a straw. Said it tasted better that way.
He used to say; 'Look, some grown
folks look at cartoons on Saturday-
mornin' tv and collect teddy bears and
everything else, so what's the matter
with drinkin' milk with a straw?' "

I had to smile. "What did his wife
say about it?"

"Well, she give him a bad time,
in a funnin' kind of way, you know.
Kept askin' him if he didn't want some
chocolate in it, too. Then they'd
laugh, and Judd, he'd tell her he'd long
since give up all the nice things about
childhood, like climbin' trees and
playin' with a yoyo, but the straw for
his milk would've been one concession
too many. Lately he even kept a
special straw to use."

"She didn't really mind, then?" I
asked, and right away felt that I was
foolishly drawing out an unimportant
point. Good grief, was I really sitting
here and talking about such a thing,
with a total stranger? But the old man
went on, and it began to seem that
maybe he had had a good reason for
bringing it up in the first place. There

was some kind of story here, maybe.

"No, hell, Linda didn't mind. Like
I said, it was a standin' joke between
'em. She did used to mind, though,
about not washin' the straw out pro-
per. It was one of them plastic straws
with a elbow-joint in it, you know,
that you wasfi and use over. Actually,
he'd got it at the hospital when he was
in to have his appendix out in August,
and kept the straw when he came
home, and insisted on usin' it, just to
kind of kid Linda, 1 guess. He some-
times helped with the dishes, and he
was in the hiibit of just runnin' some
cold water through the straw and
droppin' it in the rack to dry. Now Lin-
da, she'd fuss at him about that — said

Well, we did
look in on
him regular,
and we didn’t
like the way
he looked.
Skin looked
awful, kind of
cheesy white,
and puffier
than before.

it needed hot :;oapy water, or the milk
in that little kink in the straw'd hang
in there and go bad like, and could
make a body jsretty sick the next time.
Besides that, the straw had come from
the hospital, and hospitals are terrible
places for pickin' up germs and such."

I sipped my scotch and nodded,
wondering what all this was leading
to, if anything. "Hard to argue with
that." I half expected the punch line to
some shaggy-dog joke at this point;
but the old man's eyes had grown too
serious for tfiat. And 1 remembered
that he had spoken of both Judd and
Linda in the past tense before.

"Ayuh, slie knew what she was
talkin' about, all right, only she
couldn't have knew the half of it. I

44 Twilight Zone

don't think nobody recilly does know
all that can happen v^hen things go
spoilt or rotten. 1 remember one time
when I opened up an old root cellar
in the basement of a farmhouse, and
found an old mason jar of preserves
that'd had the wax seal broke. I can
tell you, I didn’t like the looks of
what was growin' in them preserves.
And I remember there was a dead
chipmunk once, up attic ..."

I got the feeling that he was veer-
ing away from his story, maybe re-
considering about wanting to tell it, so
1 called him back to it. "What hap-
pened with Judd and Unda?"

He glanced at mi! oddly, as if
caught in the act of changing the sub-

ject, and dropped his eyes and took
another sip of beer. "Well, like 1 said,
somethin' damned strange. 1 think
about it sometimes, nights, tryin' to
understand ..."

As his voice trailed off, the wind
outside moaned as if to underscore the
strangeness of whatever had happened,
and the old man was silent for so long
that I wondered if he did intend to go
on. But finally he spoke up.

"Come this past November, Judd
took sick, stayed home in bed with a
fever, and weak as a kitten. Linda
called Doc Blackwood in, from over
Bedford way. Doctors don't generally
make no house calls, you know, but
Doc Blackwood was a friend of the
family. He said Judd seemed to have

intestinal trouble, and prescribed him
some pills; told Linda to keep him
restin' for a day or two and he ought
to be fine. Well, Judd stayed in bed
for longer than that, and didn't seem
to be gettin' no better either. When I
looked in on him, his skin was white
as chalk, and he was lookin' kind of
puffy-like. Doc Blackwood said he
was retainin' fluids, and give him a
new mess of pills."

Outside, the wind rose even more
mournful, and the old man seemed to
be picking through his thoughts for
the best way to continue. Somehow it
made me nervous.

"When Judd had been down sick
for about three weeks, Linda got a

phone call from out in Ohio; her mom
had died. She had to go out for the
funeral and to be with her pa. She
worried about leavin' Judd alone, but
he said he'd be okay, and I assured
her me and my daughter and son-in-
law'd look in on him, so she went.
Well, we did look in on him regular,
and we didn't like the way he was
lookin'. Skin looked awful, kind of
cheesy white, and puffier than before.
Doc Blackwood had left on vacation,
but sent over a new batch of medicine
before he went. Linda called from
Ohio every night."

The old man stopped and ordered
another beer, and waited till he had
it in front of him before going on. I
replenished my scotch as well. Out-

side, the storm was getting worse, and
now I had a funny kind of crawling
sensation in my gut, waiting for the
rest of the story.

"Well sir," he finally said, "one
evenin' after Linda'd been gone about
a week, I went over to look in on
Judd, and found all the doors locked.
'Judd!' I says, ringin' the bell, 'you
there?' No answer. But I could see his
shadow movin' on the curtains, and I
figured he must be all right if he could
get up and go to the toilet and all. I
went back home and rung him up,
and he answered, and said he was all
right and not to bother myself lookin'
in on him. But I tell you, mister, I
didn't like the way he sounded on that
telephone. Kind of thick like, like he
was all stuffed up in the nose and
throat, but then again not quite like
that either. The next day the doors
over there was still locked, and when
my son-in-law called up, he said Judd
sounded strange all right, said you
could barely make out what he was
sayin'. Well, we let him be, but we
was worried now, and the next day
when 1 went over to try to get him
to come to the door, I saw — somethin'
1 don't like to remember."

He lapsed into a troubled silence
before going on.

"I hadn't been able to raise Judd
any more on the phone at all, and
around noon I figured I'd better go
over. I got no answer at the front
door, so I went home, and a little
later I come back and went around to
the back. There's a window there next
to the door, and when I come 'round,
Judd had the curtains open and was
lookin' out, not expectin' to see
nobody I imagine. Or not expectin'
nobody to see him. He quick pulled
them curtains shut, but I saw what I
saw."

Somehow I was beginning to feel
the sort of prickle at the back of my
neck that I've always read about. Up
until then I didn't know if it ever hap-
pened in real life. It does. "What was
it you saw?"

The old man shook his head — I
thought for a second he meant he
wasn't going to tell me — and wiped a
lock of hair back off his forehead. His
voice was grave now. "It wasn't
nothin' I would've thought could be
Judd Morris, if I hadn't knew he was
the only creature livin' that could be
in that house."

I was startled by his choice of
words. Had he said "it"?

"You couldn't rightly say it even
looked human, even though it did
have a shape somethin' like a man.

Twilight Zone 45

only all bloated like. The face was the
worst. I saw some kind of little things
floatin' there, like they was bobbin'
around in some sort of thick liquid
like, and it took me a minute to real-
ize they was teeth. And I caught a
whiff of some God-awful stench clear
through the closed window."

I put my glass of scotch down, a
bit shakily, on the table. "My God."
My voice came out hoarse. I could see
now he wasn't going to continue un-
less I prompted him; but 1 had to hear
whatever remained for him to tell.
You may find it strange, but I had to
believe him — you would have, too.

"What did you do?"

He looked down at the table for
a long time, then met my eyes. "What
would you do? I pissed my pgnts and
run like a goddamned jackrabbit.
When I got in the house I right off
called the police and told 'em what I
saw. The desk sergeant thought I'd had
a tad too much to drink, I guess, and
said there was a police strike on, and
he didn't have nobody to send over
anyhow. I called around and couldn't
get no doctor or anybody to come out.
You know how they are. So then I dug
out the number Linda had left with us,
and rung her up out in Ohio. She was
already in a dither because she hadn't
been able to raise Judd on the phone
neither, and said she was cornin'
straight home that afternoon."

The old man paused to collect
himself. He was beginning to perspire.
I said, "Hey, take it easy, now." It
worried me to see the way he looked.
In a minute he continued.

"Linda, she got in about five
o'clock. My daughter and her husband
and me hadn't had no luck gettin' any
response out of Judd or gettin' any-
body to come out and check on
things. We knew he must be powerful
sick, but there wasn't nothin' we could
do till Linda come up with the key.
My son-in-law Brad and me come
along with her to the house; Brad
made Jill, that's my daughter, stay
behind. Linda was shakin' all over and
couldn't even get the key in the lock,
and Brad opened the door."

The old man paused again and,
maddeningly at this point, ordered
another beer. I could see that he
needed it. I had forgotten about my

scotch, but now I downed the rest of
it.

"All the curtains in the house was
drawn, remember, so at first when we
stepped inside we couldn't see much —
and when we did see it, it took us a
minute to understand what we was
lookin' at. The most disgustin' smell
you could ever imagine smuck us full
in the face, but what we saw was the
worse part. We didn't stand there long
lookin' — a couple of seconds was all it
took to get Linda screamin' her head
off, and me losin' my dinner. Brad, he
just stood there frozen-like, I guess. I
only saw what was on the floor."

Now I felt a cold drop of sweat
trickling down my own collar. I didn't

While we
was standin’
there, two
things come
slidin’ up
to where
we stood,
slitherin’ flat
in the layer
of white stuff
on the fioor.

ask. I knew that if he had come this
far, he was going to finish it.

He took a long pull at his beer,
and his eyes grew so glazed that for
a second I thought it might have hit
him hard enough to close his mouth.
Maybe it would have been better if it
had. But he did tell the rest of it, tak-
ing a raspy breath first.

"All over the livin' room floor,
and stretchin' back into the hall one
way and back into the kitchen the
other, was a coverin' of white slime
like, thick and lumpy, like somethin'
clabbered and rotten, and smellin'
spoilt, so strong you couldn't breathe.
It was everywhere, oozin' like, lappin'
almost up to our feet where we stood.
Like 1 said, we only stayed a second
before I drug Linda back out the front
door, and her screamin' somethin' aw-

ful, and we all cut and run. But that
was long en(5ugh — we all saw the
worst part of it all before we run."

Again, I didn't ask. By now 1 felt
a little numb. His voice was cracking
now.

"While we was standin' there, two
things come slidin' up close to where
we stood, slitfierin' flat in the layer of
white stuff on the floor. They was kind
of like big poached eggs, each of 'em
about a foot across, and they was
about three feet apart. It took me till
later sometime to realize that they was
the eyes, lookin' back at us."

"Jesus Gcd." I wiped by brow
with my hand.

"Well sir, when the police finally
did come, theie wasn't nothin on that
floor but a dried-up kind of white
scum. That house always smelled,
even after tliey fumigated it, till
somebody finslly burned it down one
night. Wasn't us, you understand, but
1 sure as hell don't blame whoever
done it. Anyv;ay, Linda, she kept on
screamin' and screamin' like that, and
they put her away, out to the state
hospital. After a few days there, bel-
lowin' and thrashin' about, she died.
That was the first of December."

"Heart failure?" I asked. The
thought crosstjd my mind even now
that I wouldnt have believed a word
of this coming from anybody else; but
if you had b(!en there, had seen the
old man's face, heard the tone of his
voice . . .

"Ayuh, heart failure. And there
was somethin' else, too. She was about
three months pregnant when she died."

"Oh?"

"Ayuh. Evidently Judd was gettin'
sick a long while before anybody
knew it, includin' him."

"Wh-why do you say that?" Out-
side, the ululating wind wafted more
snow against the window, and I shud-
dered for more reasons than one, see-
ing the whitij pastiness against the
panes.

The old man finished his beer at
a swallow; his crinkled hands were
shaking, and the glass rattled when he
set it down.

"A friend of mine knows the lab
assistant that was there when they did
the autopsy on Linda. They ain't sup-
posed to talk, but you know how it is.
What they found in that woman's belly
wasn't no normal baby, 1 can tell you.
Fact is, it wasn't no real baby at all.
Just more of that thick white stuff like
in the house, a cheesy lump like, and
startin' to spread all over her insides.
It stunk, and I imagine Linda's grave
will, too, conte spring thaw." ■

46 Twilight Zone

WHniEY

A MAN FOR ALL TERRORS

Out of childhood
horrors, Sfrieber
forges books
of fear.

by STANLEY WIATER

Whitley Strieber has that look.

Few horror writers have it, and
most probably do not consciously want
it: the distant, haunted look of a man
who dwells in memory — and darkness.

"The world I really live in is one
of memory and imagination. Where
imagination may be, in fact, a form of
memory,” Strieber says.

On that level, Ramsey Campbell
and Stephen King are perhaps the only
other writers working today who can
tell you— if you’re really listening— how
they have witnessed or experienced
events far more twisted and frighten-
ing than any they have ever set down
on paper.

The Wolfen (1979), The Hunger
(1981), Black Magic (1982), The Night
Church (1983), WarDay and the
Journey Onward (1984), and Wolf of
Shadows (1985) have sold in the
millions of copies. Vi/arDay, which
garnered excellent reviews, was a New
York Times bestseller in both hard-
cover and paperback, making Strieber
one of the few unaba.shed writers of
horror to be both a popular and a crit-
ical success. Of course, this success
did not happen overnight to Strieber,
who was born in San Antonio, Texas,
in 1945, and now live.i with his wife
and young son in New York.

"It only took ten years, seven un-
published novels, and a lot of blood
before I sold The Wolfen,” he notes
wryly.

Strieber, who earlier had some ex-
perience himself as a production assis-
tant on such films as The Owl and
the Pussycat and Diary of a Mad

Housewife, has also seen his first two
novels made into major motion pic-
tures— though neither with very satis-
fying results. Yet in spite of his conti-
nuing success with the novel form,
Strieber is not sitting back. Last winter
his "young adult” novel Wolf of
Shadows was jointly published by
Knopf and the Sierra Club to typically
rave reviews. His newest novel, in a
day-after-tomorrow setting, is called
Nature’s End and was just published
in April by Warner Books.

Like his prose style, Strieber is
deceptively quiet and unassuming. Yet
his imagination is clearly powerful—
and subtly ferocious. Although he’s
very pleasant, it’s evident that he is
a man who looks deeply— very deeply
—into the shadows.

TZ: WarDay, which you co-wrote with
James W. Kunetka, was taken much
more seriously by the media and criti-
cal press than if it were “just a best-
selling novel” about the probable con-
sequences of a nuclear holocaust.
Were you hoping for that kind of
response?”

STRIEBER: Oh, yes! WarDay is
much more than ‘‘a novel.” It is liv-
ing proof that the genre I work in —
the horror genre— is, potentially at
least, terribly important to this par-
ticular era. The book breaks out of
form on so many different levels that
it’s not really correct, I think, to com-
pare it with another novel. It uses fic-
tion for a purpose. It uses fiction to
make a point. It’s more a potential
documentary than it is a novel.

TZ: You certainly broke out of form
by having you and collaborator James
W. Kunetka appear as the main char-
acters. Why?

STRIEBER: We wanted to make the
reader feel that this is real. That what
I’m reading is real; it’s a documen-
tary. It’s not “fiction.” And the best
way to do that is to be as natural and
open as possible. The purpose of us
as characters is to add impact and
a sense of immedicacy to the story.

TZ: Didn’t you once intend to follow
up with a direct sequel called War-
Day; Europe and Russia? Is that still
forthcoming?

STRIEBER: No. I wrote instead a
book called Nature’s End. It’s similar
to WarDay in that I also wrote it with
James Kunetka. It’s set fifty years in
the future, and it’s about the state of
the environment then. We wrote
most of a WarDay sequel from the
European and Russian viewpoint, but
as far as I know, there is no plan to
publish it. I felt Nature’s End was a
more important book, given the
pressing environmental concerns that
the public seems almost totally una-
ware of or are unaffected by. And we
wanted to go and do that; we may
turn back later to WarDay: Europe
and Russia, but I’m not sure.

TZ: To backtrack for a moment, have
~you always been interested in writing,
and in horror?

STRIEBER: All I did as a kid was
read and go to the movies. I was one
of those pale wimps who ran around

-1

Twilight Zone 47

vnmEY

[laughs] . . . You’ve seen them— you
were probably one of them, too.

TZ: [laughs] / don't know what
you’re talking about ....
STRIEBER: . . . with a stack of
books from the library piied up to
your nose. Thin, easily pushed over
by bullies. I was much safer in the
dark of the movie theater where no
one could see me!

TZ: All right, so many of us can relate
to that. But how did that eventually
lead to your becoming a “horror”
writer rather than, say, a romance or
mystery or science fiction writer?
STRIEBER: First of all, let me say
I recognize genre-ization simply as a
marketing tool. I write books that deal
with fear. That’s what I really do. Not
“horror novels,” but books that have
to do with fear. Stephen King writes
books about fear, Peter Straub does.
And I do that because I was formed,
in my own background, with a life that
was filled with arbitrary tragedies.
From the age of ten to the age of
twenty, it’s just a litany of one catas-
trophe after another in my family.

Beginning with my grandfather’s
sudden and early death, which really
threw the family into a very bad situa-
tion. One of my uncles was murdered
about a year later. Six months after
that, his wife was nearly burned to
death and ended up in the hospital
for two years— and she had four kids.
My father lost his voice to cancer, and
we nearly went bankrupt. Our house
burnt down. This all happened at
about the same time, and it was like
some dark force coming in just strik-
ing us, again and again and again.

The culmination of this whole
thing, as far as I was concerned, was
when I ended up a student at the
University of Texas at the same time
as Charles Whitman. And I found
myself hiding behind this small retain-
ing wall, and he had shot two women
not far from where I was hiding. He
had shot them in the stomach and
they were in agony. Screaming. Beg-
ging for help. And a fellow beside me
behind this retaining wall went out and
Whitman blew the top of his head off.
Another man came out from behind
a tree and was shot in the face and

killed. And I realized then that those
two girls had been shot that way to
attract people to them, and he was
waiting up there to kill off anyone who
came to help them. And I stayed be-
hind that wall and listened to them
. . . wind down ... get silent. It took
me a long time to come to terms with
that.

But the culmination of all of this
was, I’m very close to fear, and I
don’t feel at all safe in the universe.

I feel like it can come ... it can
come out after you at any time, at
any moment. There’s really no line at
all between life and catastrophe.
That’s why, I guess, the horror in my
books is so common.

TZ: We know your noveis are often
as weil-received by the critics as they
are the pubiic. But why shouid horror
novels, or "novels about fear” to use
your phrase, be considered in any
way worthwhile as “literature”?
STRIEBER: What horror writing is
about, in my opinion, is this journey
through the netherworld. We all
come from somewhere, and we’re all
going somewhere — and we don’t
know where. And we’re all fright-
ened. Everyone of us, in nightmares,
has lived through this fear. Now,
someone with a uniquely terrible
series of experiences like I’ve had
maybe has a special relationship
with fear. But most people walking
the street have had the Ultimate
Fear. I certainly don’t know anyone
who can’t look back on a nightmare,
and even if it didn’t make much
sense, it still drew them to a level of
ultimate terror. So we all know what
it’s about. We all know what the ter-
ror is.

Horror novels are important be-
cause they help us deal with this.
“Mainstream” novels are generally a
type of moral fiction that are about
the consciousness of everyday life.
Horror novels are about the inner
consciousness; about extending con-
sciousness into the dark places of
the soul. The novelist is a guide
through the netherworld, and in a
good horror novel, the reader is the
hero of the journey. Not he main
characters who are acted upon by
the disasters. Stephen King, for ex-
ample: his best characters are
always his victims. When you read
his books, you find yourself literally
the hero of the story in the sense
that he is guiding you from event to
event, deeper and deeper into this
netherworld.

And guiding you out again, too.

There are some sonofabitches who
leave you dangling in the darkness;
[laughs] people who really don’t
know what they’re doing, or who are
just out for a “kick.” The old “hack
’em and scares ’em” deal. I’m not in-
terested in that. I’m interested in hor-
ror fiction as a serious fictional form.

TZ: Certainiy WarDay deais very ef-
fectively with the intimate Fear facing
aii of mankind— annihiiation by
nuclear war.

STRIEBER: It takes the moment the
farthest it’s ever gone— I don’t think
there’s ever been a horror novel as
vitally connected to the issues and
the reality of terror in our time. Hor-
ror fiction is uniquely capable of
dealing with the real nightmares of
this period; there isn’t another form
that is capable of doing it. If we’re
going to learn to be able to grapple
consciously wth these terrors, it’s
going to be through the medium of
horror fiction.

TZ: You once said that you don't
consider your concept truly com-
pleted until it exists as both a book
and a fiim.

STRIEBER: Yes, that’s right. I don’t
write consciously that way, that’s just
the way it comes out of me, in such
a way that the translation from novel
into film is a very natural one.
There’s a film waiting to be made
out of The Night Church. The only
book I’ve ever written that doesn’t
necessarily have a film in it is Black
Magic, and that was because I sort
of went off on a spy tangent, and it’s
a little too complicated a plot. But
there’s a terrific movie in The Night
Church.

TZ: Then what did you think of the
fiim versions of The Wolfen and The
Hunger?

STRIEBER: They were both over-
blown; they were both done by peo-
ple who thought the horror genre
was simply a vehicle, and they were
trying to do things that were more
“important” than horror. In Woifen,
the director was interested in making
a political statement. In The Hunger,
the director was interested in making
an “art” film. Someone who had
been at a parly in London told me
that [director Tony] Scott had said,
“The Hunger is not a horror film, it’s
an art film.” And I thought, “It’s a
bomb. It’s doomed.” But if the direc-
tors had just b<}en honest ... it was
the same way with the second ver-
sion of Cat Peopie, and Ghost Story

48 Twilight Zone

was the same deal— the directors
don’t have any respect for the little
man. Either the little man who made
the pictures which ate going to live
forever, or the little man who
watched them and went away feeling
somehow a kind of catharsis in him-
self for having been there.

TZ: Knowing your intense interest —
and experience— in filmmaking, it
must be frustrating to see what’s
become, or not become, of your work
when it’s adapted for the screen.
STRIEBER: You know, I’m not that
interested in selling my novels to the
studios right now. Primarily because
so many books made into movies
have faiied in recent years. Most of
Stephen King’s have. And they’ve
failed for a number of different rea-
sons, not the least of which is they
haven’t been well done! If I strike up
a relationship with the right film per-
son, I will go back into making films
of my work. But I’m just not going
to seli them to the studios. I’m not
interested in that anymore.

TZ: Speaking of catharsis, is that
what the process of writing horror is
to you— a way of purging ail the hor-
ror you’ve experienced in reai life?
STRIEBER: Oh, definitely!!

TZ: What’s your writing schedule
like?

STRIEBER: I use a word processor.

I start work usually at eight-thirty in
the morning and work until six, with
a half hour off for lunch. I work five,
maybe six days a week, maybe seven
days a week depend ng on how in-
tensive a schedule it is. While I’m
writing one book, there’s usually two
or three other ideas I’m working on
in the back of my mind. It takes me
anywhere from a yeair to ten years
for a book to gestate in my mind, but
only about nine months a year to
write it. By the time I’m writing it, the
book’s usually been written and re-
written ten times in my head! And
then I usually go between three and
ten drafts of a book.

TZ: Considering how grim or at least
grisly the subject matter of most of
your work has been, what does give
you satisfaction as a writer?
STRIEBER: The whole experience
gives me satisfaction. Ultimately, the
writing of the book, the successful
reception of the book by readers,
and the filming of the book— that’s
the whole process. But if the book
doesn’t sell, and the readers don’t

respond, then I feel like I’ve failed.
Because the reader is as important
as the writer in the creative mix. The
reader is also a creator, a partner,
and if you don’t have a partnership,
then you’ve failed somehow; you
haven’t done it right.

I’ve always longed, naturally, for
a bigger and bigger readership, and
it is getting to be quite a big reader-
ship actually, but I always feel that
there could have been another half
million readers for a particular book.
So I’m never satisfied with what I’ve
got. I want more! [laughs] And it’s up
to me to get them. I’ll get those
readers, if I deserve them.

We all come
from

somewhere,
and we’re
all going
somewhere—
and we
don’t know
where. We’re
all frightened.

TZ: Is that part of what drives you?
STRIEBER: My work is a great joy.

I wouldn’t be able to tell you exactly
what it is that drives me, but I have
lots of ideas. I have hundreds of
ideas, and they’re just stacked up in
a holding pattern. I’ve got ten novel
ideas that I really would like to do,
and I can’t get to them alll I write
like a madman, I write as fast as I
can, and I still can’t get to them all.
By the time I’m finished with one
thing, I have five additional ideas,
and then I’ll have two more ideas,
for a total of seven ideas . . . !

TZ: Many of your fans have a
special affection for your first novel.
The Wolfen. We understand you’re
considering a sequel?

STRIEBER: Yes. It’ll be called Call
of the Wolfen, though I’m not working
on it right now.

TZ: Tell us about your “young adult"

novel called Wolf of Shadows. It’s
also gaining the attention in political
circles that WarDay received in terms
of its being taken as more than just
another novel.

STRIEBER: Yes, it’s doing quite
well, though since it’s a young adult
novel it won’t be a bestseller or any-
thing. It’s a little allegory about a
nuclear war that is so severe that a
“nuclear-winter” sets in. And it’s
about a pack of wolves and a young
woman and her daughter, who
achieve a symbiosis and begin to
support one another to be able to
survive. Allegorically, it’s saying that
we must reintroduce ourselves to
nature. We are coming up against so
many problems: excessive population
growth in the world; use of resources
spewing all sorts of things into the
atmosphere, sitting on top of these
huge arsenals, the probability that
nuclear weapons will go into the
Third World and into the hands of
terrible, demented people very soon.

To fix these things we’ve got to
understand a lot more about our-
selves than we do. WarDay and
other such fictions are becoming es-
sential to our survival. They’re much
more important than they were in the
past. Because we’re running out of
time.

TZ: If WarDay was intended as a
direct warning to its adult readers re-
gardirfg nuclear destruction, would it
be fair to say that Wolf of Shadows
was meant as a paraliel warning
which children could easily grasp?
STRIEBER: Very definitely, yes.

TZ: Traditional last question: what’s
next on the dark horizon of Whitley
Strieber?

STRIEBER: Another novel, which
will probably be out next spring. All
I can say about it is I think of it as
my big “breakthrough” novel. Much
bigger a breakthrough to the horror
genre than The Wolfen or The Hunger
were. I’m very excited about it; I
think it’s the best thing I’ve ever
done. I just finished it today. The title
of it is The Wild. And it takes some
of the oldest horror traditions, and it
makes them into something com-
pletely new. ■

(Eds. ’ note: Since this interview,
Strieber has decided to put The Wild
aside. He explains: “I just felt it
wasn’t as good as I first thought it
ivas, so / put it away. ” He is current-
ly at work on a nonfiction book, but,
he says, “It’s just too early to talk
about that now.’’)

- ’t

Twilight Zone 49

Perhaps the only thing more tion of a kind of collective id.” tual political theme about the ruling

daunting than making a sequel to (or Alien, for the uninitiated, is a class’s ability to rewrite history to hair-

more correctly a “continuation of”) an modern classic, a science fiction/hor- raising genre film action,
acclaimed genre film is trying to follow ror film hybrid that took its cue from But the centerpiece of the film
up an acclaimed genre film. All of fifties films like The Thing (1951) and was the Terminator himself. In the

which makes writer-director James It! The Terror From Beyond Space form of Conan star and body-building

Cameron a truly dauntless fellow. (1958) but turned out to be something champion, Arnold Schwarzenegger, he

Cameron, whose previous feature film completely different. Based on an was a time-twisted metaphor — a Nazi/

was the critical and popular 1984 hit, original story by Dan (Dark Star, Cyborg from the superindustrial future

The Terminator, has just put the Return of the Living Dead) O’Bannon, designed, programmed, and un-
finishing touches on Aliens, a con- Alien was on one level a nightmarish leashed to wreak havoc in the pre-

tinuation of Ridley Scott’s highly laud- voyage to the outer reaches of xeno- sent. If a facile connection can be

ed popular 1979 film. Alien. To say phobia. On another level, it was a made between the Terminator, Mad

that Cameron, who wrote the cunningly designed exercise in torture. Max, and ths masked murderer of

screenplay for Aliens, has a right to seduction, and self-loathing that used Halloween, then even more telling

feel set up to take a fall would be every trick in the book — including (given the fact that Cameron also did

an understatement. subliminal sound, flashing lights, blar- the First Blood sequel) is the evolu-

Although there is a tight lid on ing sirens, and sado-masochistic tionary link between America’s favor-

the plot of Cameron’s new film, a few imagery — to create what can only be ite super-mac ho icons: Rocky (espe-

tidbits have been offered. Described called a cacophony of brain-rattling daily as he appears in Rocky IV),

by the studio’s production notes as horror. The film is a hellish experience Rambo, and the Terminator. (Keep in

“a high tension suspense/thriller,” that ends appropriately in a blast of mind that Schwarzenegger went on to

Aliens will once again feature fire and brimstone. play a Rambo-clone in Commando.)

Sigourney Weaver as Warrant Officer The Terminator, on the other All single-minded fighting machines

Ripley, the sole survivor of the space- hand, promised to be just another out to get what they want at whatever

ship Nostromo’s encounter with a psycho killer film, albeit with a science price, this infernal trio has captured

deadly, shape-shifting extraterrestrial, fiction twist. Instead, it turned out to the hearts and minds of America’s

Cameron has been quoted as be a very provocative piece of film- hero-worshipping youth,

saying that Alien ranks as one of his making. Part Road Warrior, part Hallo- Frustrated by the Vietnam experi-

favorite films. “I like it for the same ween, and part 1984, The Terminator, ence, filmmakers have rejected the

reasons most people do. I like it for which was co-written by Cameron “beautiful losers” of the sixties in

its extreme stylistic approach, its treat- (who also co-wrote Rambo), went at favor of “winners in the eighties,”

ment of character, its heightened reali- least one step beyond most contem- even ugly storm troopers like the

ty. It was a science fiction explore- porary sf films. It wedded a subtex- (continued on page 52)

Upper: Allen "face
huggers" hang In
stasis tubes,
presenting
(clockwise from
lower left) Gorman
(William Hope),
Bishop (Lance
Henriksen), Burke
(Paul Reiser), and
Hicks (Michael
Blehn) with a
bizarre riddle.

Lower: Ripley
(Sigourney Weaver)
works with the
Power Loader on
the Sulaco.

Upper: The row of
capsules In the
Sulaco’s Hypersleep
vault containing
Ripley (Weaver),
Burke (Reiser), and
troopers of the US
Colonial Marine
Corps.

Lower: Having
found herself
trapped In Allen
territory, Ripley
(Weaver) struggles
to escape — and
rescue Newt (Carrie
Henn), too.

(continued from page 50)

Terminator. It’s a truly frightening
comment on current American culture,
especially since the sexually vora-
cious, rampantly reproductive Alien
itself is arguably the descendant of
this ass-kicking, homo-erotic three-
some— an outerspace Nazi.

In The Terminator, Cameron, with
the help of co-screenwriter and prod-
ucer Gale Anne Hurd, managed not
only to concoct a futuristic parable,
but also to tap into anti-social
reserves of anger and frustration.

Can Cameron pull off another
coup with Aliens, saddled with a set
of characters and a plot he did not
originate? Well, he already did just
that when he turned the sequel to
First Blood into what some have call-
ed The Terminator Goes to Vietnam.

What's more, Cameron admits
that he’s taken some liberties with

Dan O’Bannon’s original vision. For
one. Aliens will not be set exclusively
within the claustrophobic confines of
a single spacecraft. Instead, most of
the action will take place on the in-
hospitable planet, Acheron (the name
of a river in the Hades of Greek
myth), home to both a human outpost
and an Alien structure containing a
labyrinth of chambers and catacombs.
Cameron has also added more human
protagonists and Alien creatures.
(continued on page 55)

Upper Left:
Sigourney Weaver
takes time out to
play with a terrestlal
creature.

Upper Right; The US
Colonial Marine
Corps members
make a point.

Bishop (Lance
Henriksen) wields
the Ice pick.

Lower; Preparations
take place In the
Sulaco's cargo hold
as the US Colonial
Marine Corps get
ready for Allen
dimes on the orbit-
to-surface craft, the
Drop Ship.

SC»AR

BABIES

Top; Strlctor Crock (Richard Jordan)
and his protege Gavlal (Peter
Kowanko) supervise the torture of
TchlganI chief Ivor (Terrence Mann).

Opposite page: Strlctor Crock
(Jordan) torments Cavlal
(Kowanko) In the psychiatric
chamber pf terrors.

Left; The Solarbables bask In
the otherworldly glow of a
publicity shot, (left to right)
Rabbit (Claude Brooks), Tug
(Peter DeLulse), Terra (Jam!
Certz), Daniel (Lukas Haas),
Jason (Jasoh Patric), and
Matron (James Le Cros).

54 Ttcilighl Zone

“It’s hot Gremlins, it’s not
Goonies, it’s not Explorers,” says
Irene Walzer, associate producer
of Brooksfilms’ Solarbabies. “It’s
unique.’’

Set in a world without water—
and shot, appropriately, in the
Spanish desert— Solarbabies tells
the story of a group of teenage
skateball players and their
rebellion against a totalitarian
government that sounds, curi-
ously, like the Los Angeles Water
Department. In this vision by
Walon Green and Douglas Metrov,
he who controls water controls
the world, and the Protectorate
has cornered every drop.

Enter the Solarbabies, a skate-
bail team that does battle with the
Scorpions— and the dictatorship at
large. The stars Jami Gertz
{Mischief, Alphabet City), Lukas
Hass (Witness), James Le Gros
(Violated, Insiders), Peter DeLuise
(Free Ride), Claude Brooks
(Guiding Light, Ryan’s Hope),
Jason Patric (Tough Love), and
Peter Kowanko (Sylvester) took

lessons from veteran Spanish
roller hockey stars and endured
one hundred-degree temperatures
to create skateball— a wild mixture
of hockey, lacrosse, and street
gang warfare.

Solarbabies’ director, Alan
Johnson, a widely respected
choreographer, is perhaps best
known for the world’s most ab-
surd production number, “Spring-
time for Hitler,” in Mel Brooks’s
The Producers. Before directing
the Brooksfilm To Be Or Not To
Be, Johnson worked with Brooks
on Blazing Saddles, Young Frank-
enstein, High Anxiety, and History
of the World, Part I.

Of his transition from the
dance step to the cutting room,
Johnson says, “It’s a natural pro-
gression from choreography to
direction. You do the same things,
make the same decisions for a
dance number as for a film. The
creative urge is the same.”

Even, one assumes, if the me-
dium is solar energy.

—MB

(continued from page 53)

Cameron contends, “Calling it a
continuation is hairsplitting in one
sense. In another, it’s positive and
healthy because for many people se-
quel means re-make, a recapitulation
of some other story, following virtual-
ly the same formulaic structure. We
go into a completely different realm
both stylistically and narratively. It
does, however, have a similar height-
ened sense of moment-to-moment re-
ality, and it has the claustrophobia.
But the canvas is a bit larger. I think
what audiences will remember is a
sense of exhiliration at the action. I
would compare it more to The Termin-
ator, which is where I learned a lot
about action, than to the original film.
Among other things, the film will ex-
plore the idea of what heroism really
is under extremely stressful circum-
stances. The special effects and the
gadgets are entirely in the service of
the story.”

Gale Ann Hurd, the producer of
Aliens, offers some insight into the
film’s plot when she describes Aliens
as “very much a combat film ... a
combat film with lots of action and an
unseen enemy.”

All this may lead one to suspect
that Cameron is once again explor-
ing the damage Vietnam inflicted on
the American psyche, using Acheron
with its honeycomb of Alien-infested
tunnels as a science fiction stand-in
for Southeast Asia. But Cameron in-
sists, “My writing on Rambo did not
explore any political or sociological
issues. I was primarily concerned with
character. The bias in that film is
Stallone’s. Aliens is more reflective of
my writing. Its primary concern is
character and behavior, especially
under extreme conditions. I may have
described the plot once as having
Vietnam-like situations, and I think that
might be there. But I’m a Canadian,
and my experience of Vietnam was
watching the six o’clock news and
having a few draft-dodger acquain-
tances. I am, however, fascinated by
the idea of a highly technological war
being fought against a relatively
primitive people who win. There is a
bit of that. The Forever War (by Joe
Haldeman) is one of a number of
novels and short stories that present
soldiers in outer space. But it’s never
really been done in the movies. The
imperial storm troopers in the Star
Wars films don’t really qualify. In fact.

Grunts in Space is how I first pitched
my script to the studio.”

Cameron also makes some neat
distinctions between the Terminator
and the Alien: “I saw the Terminator,
as an entity, as a sort of death figure,
a personification of the implacability
of death. The Alien I see a little dif-
ferently, as a mindless, chaotic life
urge that’s out of control. The two are
similar, but they’re also different. The
Terminator was cold. He had a kind
of razor-blade mind. We couldn’t
relate to him. Whereas the Alien we
can relate to because he’s basically
trying to survive. He’s the purest ex-
pression of the will to survive. I think
we have to dig down to dredge up
any sympathy because the Alien has
no real consciousness. But it’s there.”

And even with the success of the
original and the overlapping of some
of the first film’s production team, he
was not particularly pressured to re-
tain the previous film’s structure or
style. “So many years have inter-
vened, longer than what one would
consider viable for a sequel, and so
many other films have copycatted
Alien in one way or another, that it
was a lot easier for me to sell the
idea that Aliens should be completely
new, both stylistically and in terms of
content.”

Walter Hill will return as a ex-
ecutive producer. Alien veteran, Ron
Cobb, is also back again in his capa-
city as a conceptual artist, together
with Syd Mead (perhaps best known
for his fontribution to Ridley Scott’s
Blade Runner), and production design-
er, Peter (Octopussy, A View to a Kill)^
Lament. But this time around the spe-
cial make-up effects — an integral part
of the impact of the original film — will
be handled by Stan (The Thing, Star-
man) Winston, who worked with
Cameron on The Terminator.

As most genre film buffs know,
the innovative and frighteningly effec-
tive appearance of the creature In
Alien was based on designs by Swiss
surrealist artist, H. R. Giger, whose
biomechanical style is nothing if not
unique. And his influence is still felt.

“The ghost of Giger is with us,”
says Cameron good-naturedly.

As anyone who reads these film
previews understands, it’s almost im-
possible to say how a film — sight
unseen — will turn out. But in light of
James Cameron’s previous work and
his own words about his new film. I’ll
place my bets on Aliens. Cynics may
argue, as they almost always do in
the case of a sequel (or whatever you
call it), that once was enough. But I
have a sneaking suspicion that we’re
in for some wonderful and nasty sur-
prises. Chestbursters, anyone?

Twilight Zone 55

¥Z BREAKING IN

CHET

WUJAMSON

From a Twilight Zone tale of
an office's inhumanity to man
to a New Yorker fantasy
of Gandhi at the bat:
the rapid rise of Chet Williamson.

It’s presumptious, we know, but
we like to think of Chet Williamson as
a TZ discovery. After all, shortly after
Twilight Zone published his first story,
“Offices,” in its October 1981 issue, he
began placing stories in magazines like
Playboy and the New Yorker. Then last
spring, he landed a two-novel contract
with Tor. They are publishing his first
novel, Soul Storm, this August and his
second. Ash Wednesday, some time
next year.

Of course, we also realize that
Williamson himself deserves some
credit. Although he began writing fic-
tion oniy seven years ago, he has
aiready completed three novels and is
currentiy revising two more. Yet he is
remarkably modest about his achieve-
ments. He laughs with seif-effacing
good humor when he describes how
he began writing and sounds some-
how stiil surprised when he explains
how he broke in.

TZ: Shortly after you sold your first
story to TZ, you wrote, "I had wanted
to be a writer for a long time. The
probiem was, I didn’t want to write.”
That’s a problem that probably plagues
a lot of people. How did you solve it?
Williamson: I was acting and then
writing industrial shows — musicals that
big companies like Armstrong put on
for wholesalers and retailers. And that
was the first time I really started
writing. I had not written any fiction

until then. Oh, a couple of little abort-
ed attempts, but nothing seriously. And
then I found myself writing this stuff
full-time, and I thought, “Gee, this
writing is not bad. I wonder what it
would be like to write something seri-
ously?”

So around 1979 or 1980, I said,
“All right, let’s just write a page a day.
Doesn’t matter if it’s bad, doesn’t mat-
ter if it’s good, doesn’t matter what
it is — you’ll write a page a day. So I
started going over to the library on my
lunch hour and wrote a page a day.
And by God, by the end of the year,
I had 365 pages. So the next year I
decided I would do two pages a day,
which came to — what?— 730 pages?
And I found that some of it was
saleable. Some of it sold. So once the
discipline was established, I found that
I was a writer, in that I was writing
every day and turning out, occasional-
ly, decent material. It was just the
discipline of doing it that did it.

TZ: Were your first efforts all short
stories?

Williamson: Yes, and it was madden-
ing, because when I was finishing one
up I knew that the next day I had to
start another, and there had to be an
idea there. So some of the stories
were pretty awful because I did not
have good ideas when I started. May-
be some of the ideas could be re-
worked, but the treatments were
dreadful.

TZ: Where did you get those ideas?
Williamson: I was just reading an in-
terview with the two guys who wrote
inherit the Wind, and they said, “Write
about things that annoy you. That’s
where you get your ideas.” That’s a
little didactic, but I think that’s how
I first started, l;>ecause “Offices” came
from my own dissatisfaction with work-
ing in an office — the idea that “My
God, these people are stealing my
soul!”

TZ: Do you feel you are working in
any particuiar tradition?

Williamson: There are certain genres
I like. For me, the epitome of fantasy
is a well-told ghost story. I think it’s
the thing that lies closest to our real
fears. For example, I could never be
afraid of a vampire, although I’ve read
some very effective vampire stories.
But there isn t that fear there that
there is in a ghost— in one’s own
death. It’s just the prime subject, as
far as I’m conc;erned. And because of
that, certain works stand out more for
me than ceriain writers. Like the
haunted house story, which is dear to
my heart because Soui Storm is a
haunted house story.

Of course, I was very affected by
Lovecraft, although I don’t think I’ve
ever written anything Lovecraftian.
Poe, I’ve always loved, and M. R.
James. As fat as the classic ghost
story writer, he’s the best, just the
best. And Robert Bloch. I have always

56 Twilight Zone

liked Robert Bloch because of that
clean, plain style of his. He just knows
how to tell a story so well.

TZ: You have a clean, plain style, too.
Williamson: Well, if I hit a line that
makes me stop and go, “Ooh, that’s
a nice piece of writing,” I generally
discover that I ought to cut it. Who
was it that said, “Murder your darl-
ings”? I’ve written an av/ful lot of darl-
ings that haven’t been murdered.

TZ: It is hard to do.

Williamson: Yes, because you say,
“Now is this line really good, or is it
self-conscious?” So if I suspect it, I
try to destroy it.

TZ: How did you know that you finally
had a story worth submitting?
Williamson: I don’t know. That really
gets kind of nebulous. “Offices” was
maybe about the twenty-fifth story I
had written. And again, of the other
twenty-four, there may be a few that
could be mined, but most were not
very good. They were too derivative
... or just plain dumb. But, the more
you write, the more you begin to think,
“Hey, this is a lot better than the one
I did before.” And finally it gets to the
point when you think, “Hmm, this
might be good enough to sell.”

TZ: Not too long after placing your first
story in TZ you also published in
Playboy and the New Yorker. How did
you get into them?

Williamson: I guess I sold to Playboy
first. It was a case of feeling out the
market, which is what my agent does
now. I knew that Te(j Klein knew
Playboy’s fiction editor, /Jice Turner. So
I didn’t really send a cover letter, but
a little sheet listing the: people I had
sold to, including TZ. So it did get
read by Alice, whereas if I had just
sent it into the slush, a reader might
have read it and that would have been
the end of it. But the New Yorker was
just a straight slush pile thing. I wrote
this whacky thing [about Mahatma
Gandhi playing baseball] and I thought,
“Well, this is funny. Where in God’s
name am I going to send it?” Then
I remembered that Roger Angell is an
editor over there. He’s a wonderful
baseball writer and, of course, a huge
baseball fan. So I sent it to his
attention.

TZ: That was clever, because then it
* didn’t really sink into their fiction slush.

Williamson: Well, it was slush, but
the right slush. I sent the thing in on
a Monday and Thursday he called. He
talked to my wife because I was at
work, and when I came home, there
were balloons and streamers in the
mailbox. I knew something had
happened.

TZ: Did you have any trouble going
from short stories to novels?
Williamson: I started Soul Storm in
’81, shortly after I sold my first cou-
ple stories, and it was a bit daunting.

I didn’t know anything about writing
a novel, or about writing anything that
length. But it just sort of seemed to
roll. Now, it’s gotten to the point that
I like writing novels a lot more than
I do short stories. I can be much more
relaxed because I know I can give
myself six months or however long it
takes to finish it. And it’s much easier
to come up with an idea every six

Who was
it that said,
“Murder
your

dariing^’?

months and develop it. I find, too, that
I love characterization. And character-
ization in novels can be so much
more developed than it can in short
stories. You have so much more room
to work with.

TZ: For you, then, writing a novel is
a relief.

Williamson: Yes, it is. When I’m
writing a novel, and I’m half way
through and go in and sit at the word
processor, it’s like coming back to old
friends. With a short story, it’s like
jumping into the lion’s den. You know,
“Finish this, and do it right, or we’ll
kill you.”

TZ: But how did you go from maga-
zine sales to a two-novel contract?
Williamson: I got an agent. I had
tried to market the first book on my
own, and I just didn’t know what to
do with it. As a result, it didn’t go

anywhere. I would send queries out,
you know, little things saying, “Hey,

I have this. Would you be interested
in seeing it?” And everyone wrote
back, “No, no, no. Go away.” So I
talked to Lloyd Arthur Eshbach— one of
the giants in old time sf, who lives
in this area — I mean, gee, the fellow
who started Fantasy Press back in the
forties and published stuff in Amaz-
ing and Astounding in the thirties. He
knew I was writing and wasn’t having
any luck selling, and he said, “Well,
why don’t you send one to my agent,
and I’ll write you a little letter of in-
troduction?” So I did, and it was Jim
Allen, who works for Virginia Kidd. He
loved the first book, and said, “Heck,
yeah. I’ll take you on.” Of course, he
had to send it around to a few places,
but it got bought.

TZ: So you’re a firm believer in get-
ting an agent?

Williamson: From my experience try-
ing to do it on my own, I would hate
trying to sell a novel without an agent.
It can be done, and it has been done.

I mean, there are a lot of people, like
Asimov, who still don’t have agents to-
day. But I’ve found that it’s really nice
to have one. And he handles all my
shorts as well.

TZ: At 9/hat point did you begin writing
full-time?

Williamson: With the sale of the two
books, last spring. But I still do free-
lance advertising work for the compa-
ny I worked for before, [laughs] So, it’s
sort of like going in there and painting
the Sistine Chapel, and Pope Julius
gives you a little money to live on.

TZ: Are you really sanctifying adver-
tising?

Williamson: No, not really. But it did
teach me discipline, something I
needed at the time.

TZ: How has freelancing worked out
so far?

Williamson: There are a lot of dis-
tractions at home, but in truth, I work
a lot more intensely than I did when
I worked for the company. Being your
own boss is nice, but I’m also a much
tougher boss than most bosses I’ve
had. I’ve got to be. Othenwise, I’d just
'piddle away my time. And I’ve done
that, too. But the freedom is great.
And there is something to be said for
not having to put on a tie. I love it.

— RB

Twilight Zone 57

It IS saitt,
a writer,
Wingarden
met a fate

by CHff miUAmOH

W ately I've thought often of what
I Prospero says in The Tempest
|j when he renounces magic:

. I'll -break' -my staff.

Bury it certain fathdtni in the earth.

And deeper than did ever plummet sound
1 drown my book.

And now I renounce my magic

and end my career before

begun. It's knowing what he
J. M, Wingarden, writer,
r artist, spinner of sorceries,
extraordinaire, that
:urn my back pn words,
he vanished seventeen
ago, the literary world— by
I mean the world of all who

IliUSTRATION BY BOB HOPEB

I IlL DROW^

I Wi BOOH

read — was shaken. He had been prom-
inent for only a year, yet in that time
there had appeared two novels that
some consider the finest in the
language. In the Shadows brilliantly
examined in less than two hundred
pages the dark soul of twentieth-
century man, and Over the Border
screamed a warning to civilization
with searing sanity. The books were
praised, bought, read, and shivered at,
then read again. And the name of
J. M. Wingarden became universally
known.

Then, as suddenly as his star had
gone into nova, he became a black
hole. J. M. Wingarden vanished utter-
ly. Whether he died or dropped volun-
tarily from sight no one knew, but the
latter was the guess of most of the
literati, as his books were ngver re-
printed, despite the staggering de-
mand. Only contractual machinations
by the author himself, went the rea-
soning, could have produced the situa-
tion, for the publishers were reputedly
livid at having to suppress the books.

So J. M. Wingarden disappeared,
but the mystery remained, greater
than that surrounding all the other
literary riddles of our time: Traven,
Salinger, Pynchon. At least we have
the works, if not the men. But Win-
garden became more than a riddle. He
became an enigmatic legend, the
Sphinx of Letters.

He called me on the telephone
three months ago. 1 though it was a
joke, but the voice sounded so sincere,
so unfailingly right, that I believed him
within a few sentences. He said:

"Mr. McPeel, this is J. M. Win-
garden."

The voice was heavy, rich with
something beyond years. I didn't answer.

"The writer. I wrote In the
Shadows and ..."

"Yes," I interrupted. "I know you."
I had to add, "If this isn't a joke."

"No," he said. "It's not a joke. I'm
alive." I hadn't suggested otherwise, so
the comment seemed odd to me. "I
would like to give an interview."

"An . . . interview?" I could barely
speak.

"Yes. Do you think it would be
profitable for you? I mean to say, do
you think you could get it published?"

Could I get it published? Only in
every damn magazine in the country.

"That would be no problem at all, sir."

"Are you certain? It's very impor-
tant to me that it be disseminated as
widely as possible."

"I can guarantee that, Mr. Win-
garden." My mind raced as I thought
of possible markets. "But why have
you decided to grant an interview
after so many years?"

"I'll explain that when we meet.
That is, if you want to do it?"

"Oh, yes sir, definitely." In
another second I would have crawled
into the mouthpiece. I wanted to get
the details — where and when — quickly.

dozen stories and articles, my three
paperback originals -all that was
nothing. From now on I would be
known as the man who found J. M.
Wingarden, and when I thought of the
doors that W(3uld open, I felt giddy.

I cancelled the interviews I'd sched-
uled with some potters for an Art
News article, dug out my copies of In
the Shadows and Over the Border,
and reread them twice that 'weekend.
On Monday I hit the New York Pub-
lic, went through the 1968-69 Reader's
Guide and Book Review Digest, and
O.D.'d on VS'ingardenian microfiche.

Then, as
suddenly as
his star had
gone into nova,
Wingarden
became a
black hole.

He vanished
utteriy.

as I had this irrational fear that at any
second he'd say very well, hang up,
and disappear again. But instead he
told me where he lived and how to
get there (I scribbled the directions
frantically), gave me his phone num-
ber (listed under "Johnson, M."), and
asked me if the following Thursday
would be all right. I said it would,
and he quickly hung up, as if unused
to human contact.

My heart was literally pounding
as a dozen questions sprang to mind:
Was he planning a comeback? Was
there a new novel or at least a plan
to reprint the first two? And why me,
for God's sake? Why not Updike or
Fowles or Mailer or a hundred other
writers who would have tossed their
paperback rights onto a pile of flam-
ing film options just to sit at the feet
of J. M. Wingarden?

It didn't matter. All that mattered
was that I was doing to do it. My few

Tuesday held more of the same, and
by that evening I figured I knew as
much (or as little) about J. M.
Wingarden as anyone except the man
himself.

I got m 3 ' notepads, tapes, and
clothes packed and took a flight to
Philly the next morning. From there,
a rattly commuter jerked me to Lan-
caster. I rented a car, found a Holiday
Inn, and called Wingarden to make
sure everything was still go. It was,
but he didn't seem talkative, and I
hoped his reticence wouldn't carry
over into the interview.

The following day I drove south-
east to a small town named Quarry-
ville, and another mile east to Wingar-
den's farmhouse. My mentioning this
is no breach ol confidentiality. It makes
no difference now. The house was
large and box;,', set far back from the
two-lane. A v'eathered barn and sev-
eral smaller outbuildings surrounded it

60 Twilight Zone

on three sides. Though the grounds
seemed well kept, the paint on the
house was chipped, and a large limb
lay untouched at the b.ise of a huge
elm in the front yard.

It took several minutes for him to
answer the door after 1 knocked. At
first 1 thought he was a servant in his
checked wool shirt and worn poplin
trousers, and his apparent age also
fooled me. The dust-jacket photo taken
seventeen years earlier showed a man
in his late thirties, an unlined face
beneath a cap of dark, curly hair. But
this man appeared to be at least seven-

ty. A light halo of white hair fringed
a mottled scalp, and the lines in his
face were scarred with far more than
fifty-five years of frov^ms. He didn't
smile. That whole day 1 never saw
him smile.

He introduced himself and invited
me in. There was a large bookcase in
the foyer, and in the dim light 1 could
see that it was packed with multiple
copies of his two novels. The books
were in varying conditions, and there
seemed to be no semb'ance of order
in the way they were ai'ranged on the
shelves.

Wingarden led me into a room on
the left, a den with a lounger, a large
color tv, a couch, and a coffee table.
There was no desk in I he room. The
walls were lined with bookshelves, all
packed solid with only two titles — /n
the Shadows and Over the Border. He
sat in the lounger, and I on the couch.
I put the tape recorder on the table

and took out my notepads, but he
held up a hand.

"No notes, please. You may use
the recorder, but I ask that after the
tape is transcribed you destroy it
without making a copy."

I agreed, turned on the recorder,
and began.

"May I ask you a personal ques-
tion first? How did you come to
choose me to interview you?"

"I called Dan Rhodes and he sug-
gested you. Said you were a good
writer. And an honest one."

I nodded. Dan was my agent.

He'd handled Wingarden at the begin-
ning of his career, but I hadn't made
the connection before. "I couldn't help
but notice," I went on, "that your
bookshelves are filled with your own
work,"

"I don't read anyone else," he said
coldly. "I can't concentrate long
enough."

I didn't want him hostile and
made a mental note to come back to
the subject later. "How long have you
lived here?"

"Seventeen years. Ever since I
dropped from sight. 1 have a large
garden out back that keeps me busy."

"Do you still write?"

He shook his head. "1 never write.
The money I made from the books
has been enough to get me by. I
bought real estate with it years ago,
invested. I live on interest."

"Why did you stop writing? Why
disappear?"

He sat quietly for a moment, then
weakly waved the question away. I
decided to go back to the books.
There wasn't that much else to ask.
"Why have you collected all these
copies of your work?"

"I needed them." He said it and
stopped, as though it were enough,
but it wasn't, and I looked at him and
waited. He sat uncomfortably, then
added, "I couldn't destroy them. I'd
worked too hard on them to do that."

I scanned the shelves. "You know,
you've got a tidy fortune here. Your
books are fetching high prices in the
out-of-print market."

He nodded. "That's become a
problem to me."

"How so?"

"I've been buying up copies ever
since I dropped from sight. The book
dealers I work through think I'm one
of them — M. Johnson. But, as you
say, the prices have accelerated tre-
mendously, and it's becoming more
difficult for me to buy them."

I didn't understand. He didn't
seem a megalomaniac, or even a grand
eccentric.

He stood up. "Come with me. 1
want to show you the house."

I switched off the recorder and
followed him, while he barked out
"kitchen," "sitting room," "dining
room," as we entered each dim
chamber. But none were so dark that
I could^ not see the floor-to-ceiling
shelves full of books that covered
nearly every wall on the two floors.

Then he took me into the base-
ment. It was huge, packed nearly solid
with piles of cardboard boxes. I lifted
one of the lids and found what I'd ex-
pected— a box of J. M. Wingarden's
two novels, the same books that sat
on every shelf in the house.

"Let's step outside for a moment,"
he said, and when we were on the
porch he pointed to the barn, whose
top was at least fifty feet from the
ground. "It's full of them," he said
quietly, "hundreds of cartons of them
stacked on skids."

I had to ask. "How many? How
many altogether?"

"Of In the Shadows, one hundred
and thirty thousand, eight hundred
and fourteen. Over the Border, two
hundred and eight thousand, five hun-
dred and forty."

I wanted to laugh in my discom-
fort, but didn't. "Why have you done
this? How many copies of your books
do you want?"

"All of them," he said and walked
back into the house.

Back in the den he sat in the

Twilight Zone 61

I lU DROWN
MY BOOK

lounger and waited for me to turn on
the recorder before he started to talk.
I didn't have to ask a question for a
long time.

"It began in '68, just after Over
the Border came out. The reviews
were good, and it sold very well." He
shook his head. "Too well. It was a
few days after Christmas that I felt it
for the first time. 1 awoke just after
midnight to the sound of something
inside my head. I lay in the dark for
a moment, and it was as if someone
were there in the room watching me.
More than just watching, really — it
was as if my mind were being probed,
looked into, as if my thoughts were
no longer mine alone, but audible for
anyone to hear. It was a feeling of in-
tense ..." He waved his hanc^ in the
air, reaching for a word, "... discom-
fort, an obscene intrusion. And I
could not shake it off. Finally I took
some pills and dropped into sleep.

"But the next day the sensation
was back, and now it seemed as
though several people were with me,
prying into my brain, discovering
everything I'd hidden from the world.
As the days went by the sensation
grew stronger, until 1 was afraid 1 was
actually going insane, that the tremen-
dous critical and popular success had
been too much for me to handle. Yet
I wasn't aware of any such change in
myself. I only wanted to write more,
to use the success as a base from
which I could • reach higher." He
laughed without mirth. "I found my-
self, after writing a book about mad-
ness, going mad."

Sighing deeply, he reclined the
lounger so that he stared up at the
ceiling. I felt like a psychiatrist. "And
then," he went on, "I realized what it
was.

"I felt them reading me."

"I couldn't imagine what caused
it, and I've not come up with a fully
logical answer in all these years. I sup-
pose it may have been due to my sen-
sitivity. I've always been aware of
other people's reactions, emotions, and
such. Somehow my books may have
acted as a sort of storage battery, so
that there is actually not only a part
of me, but all of me in every one of
those books."

He sat without speaking for a

minute, then said quietly, "An author
has the limitless accessibility of God.
He can reach out and speak to mil-
lions, each at a different time, precise-
ly when they want to hear his voice,
read his mind, reach into his thoughts.
But unlike God — lucky, lucky God —
he is incapable of turning them away.
If they own the book, they own him.
His thought . . . my thoughts . . . are
there at their command. They read
me, and I must speak to them.

"The first few years were the
worst. Shortly after these . . . visita-
tions, shall I call them? . . . began, I

pieces of myself that I needed to
become whok; again.

"I wrote to book dealers under
my pseudonym, inquiring after copies,
and was able to buy them cheaply.
Condition was unimportant, and since
my investments were showing an hon-
orable return, I was able to amass sev-
eral thousand copies in the first few
months. But it became more difficult.
Although the readership dropped, it
was still high enough to cause terrible
pain."

He suddenly straightened the
chair and looked at me. "Think of

He laughed
without
mirth. “I
found

myself, after
writing a
book about
madness,
going mad.”

ordered my publisher to stop reprint-
ing. They were furious, but I had my
rights. The power of a good writer,
eh? The damned books were every-
where, and 1 would have gone bank-
rupt trying to buy them up, so I bided
my time. I had no choice.

"It was agonizing. Millions, were
reading the books, and I felt them all,
prying and probing. Laudanum was
the only thing that gave me peace,
and I became addicted, but at least the
sensations diminished enough to let
me sleep, though fitfully.

"The books already in print disap-
peared from the stores quickly, as
they were the books of the season,
and their mysterious author caused no
end of unwanted publicity. I was read
and read and read over and over until
my brain was so swollen I knew it
would burst. I had to start collecting
the books, in the hope that by gather-
ing them up I would be gathering the

your own work," he said. "An article
appears in a popular magazine, and
for a month oir two the odds are good
that whatever the time of day, your
words, your thoughts, are being read
by someone somewhere in this country."

There was horror in his eyes. The
thought had occurred to me, particular-
ly at the beginning of my career, and
with pleasure. But from the perspective
of J. M. Wingcirden, I began to feel like
an actor who was always on stage in
front of an audience that never went
home.

"Now," h(; said, his voice thick,
"multiply that by several thousand over
a period of years, and you'll know
what I've gone; through."

"But it would be impossible," I
said, "to gather all the books. Why
even try?"

"I must," he answered, rising and
crossing to tfie shaded window. He
reached out a hand to pull back the

62 Twilight Zone

shade, but let it drop to his side. "I
simply must try to get them back."

"Hasn't readership of your work
fallen off considerably? (Zertainly that
must ease this feeling of yours."

"It's changed it, not eased it.
Before it was like a torrent. Now it's
a faucet dripping in an inconstant rhy-
thm. It stops for a time, and you think,
peace at last. Then someone some-
where picks up a book, and it starts
again."

He drew in a breath, and the air
in his throat rippled in a sob. "That's
why I asked you here, so that I could

tell them, beg them all to read me no
more, to send me the books ..."

"Send them? Why not destroy
them?"

"No!" he cried, with more force than
1 had imagined him capable of show-
ing. "No. I'm part of them. Too much
of my life went into them to see them
destroyed. Otherwise, why shouldn't I
have destroyed all these? ISIo. They must
send them to me. They'll be returned
upon my death, 1 promise that. But I
can't afford to buy them .inymore, that's
impossible for me now."

I tried to grasp some bit of logic
in his ramblings, tried to find some
way to break down liis psychosis.
"What if it backfires?" I asked in as
reasoned a voice as possible. "What if
it creates a renewal of interest, and
your books begin to be widely read
again? And why should people send
you books worth a hundred dollars and
up?"

"They must," he said, looking at
me with hurt, frightened eyes. "After
I've given them everything I have,
would they refuse me so little?"

He sat down and reclined the
lounger once more. "As for the renewal
of interest, it's a chance I have to take.
I can't go on like this much longer. I
was able to give up the laudanum years
ago, but I must resume its use if things
continue as they are. If I do, it will kill
me." He craned his neck to look direct-
ly into my eyes, and I'll never forget
his look of pleading desperation.
"You're my final hope, Mr. McPeel."

He wouldn't talk about anything
else. Before I left, he gave me some
papers that would corroborate my
story.

He stood on the porch as I drove
away, his head down, shoulders
hunched as if against a heavy wind.
But there was no wind.

When I got back to the city the
next day, I transcribed the tape and
edited the hard copy. The cassette I
erased, dismantled, and threw in the
garbage. Then I called Dan, and he
told me to bring over the interview first
thing Monday morning! He hadn't ar-
rived by ten, so I left it and the corrob-
orating papers with his secretary. He
called me that evening.

"This is for real?" he asked.

"For real. He's crazy, Dan. Truly."

He sighed. "Crazy or not, I can
place this high. Give me a week."

It took less. He called me on
Thursday to tell me that Time was the

winning bidder with a figure so high it
was embarrassing. The piece appeared
three weeks later with a cover photo-
graph of J. M. Wingarden. It was an
eight-page, removable, center insert.
My by-line, though not on the cover,
was firmly ensconced on the first page,
along with a photo Dan had supplied.

Wingarden had been amazingly
right in one way. Copies of In the
Shadows and Over the Border poured
in to Time's offices for weeks. But they
never got to Wingarden.

Wingarden was dead.

He died the day after his Time hit
the newsstands. It was a combination
of a cerebral hemorrhage and a massive
coronary. The doctors couldn't explain
how both had hit at once. But I can.

Quite simply, his mind imploded.
He couldn't withstand the real or imag-
ined input that must have buffeted his
brain as literally millions of people
read his words at one time. Perhaps
he thought that because they were
only spoken, they would not have the
power that his written words had had
years before. At least, I think he be-
lieved that; he seemed so sure it would
not harm him.

Yet he was wrong, and that's
what I find so frightening. If it was all
paranoia, delusion, he shouldn't have
died, for he hadn't imagined that out-
come. And even if he had — if the
whole thing had been a suicidal
plot — wkat human mind could shatter
both brain and heart in one cataclys-
mic moment?

In that impossibility lies my ter-
ror. In that and more.

It started the evening Wingarden
died. I awoke just after midnight to a
touch as light as a strand of spiderweb
or the wings of a moth, and a low
buzzing inside my head.

I took a few Seconals and finally
got back to sleep. But the next day
was a nightmare, and before noon, be-
fore I'd even heard of Wingarden's
death, I knew that his awareness was
how mine. I talked to Dan about it,
and he suggested a psychiatrist. I'll see
him, for what it's worth, but I'm not
going to stop what I've been doing for
the past few weeks — going to every
used book shop in Manhattan and
buying up those goddamned lousy
paperback originals I wrote in a mad
burst of hack creativity two years ago.

If any of you send me copies of
Heart of Space, Timeframe 2000, or
Within the Giant's Grip, I'll send you
a dollar for each, plus postage. Fifty
cents for any magazine with one of
my stories in it.

And please don't read them first.!

Twilight Zone 63

by ANDREW WEINER

There is a body floating face down
in the swimming pool. 1 think it may
be me.

The car radio plays an old popu-
lar song as we spin out of control,
gravity pulling me up and over the
steering wheel and into the hardened
glass of the windshield. This year,
next year, sometime, never. Not even
that popular.

The paramedics attempt to induce
vomiting. They are far too late.

1 feel the water surging up over
my head. It is not as bad as I ex-
pected, somehow.

It's hard to say where it began,
when or where it began. You would
think it would be easy, that part of
it at least, but it isn't, it really isn't.
1 just don't remember these things very
clearly anymore, and peihaps I never
did, it's impossible to say now. Al-
though I do have the iiripression that
I used to remember things better, I
have a very distinct impression to that
effect.

Begin at the beginning. That's
very easily said. Much too easily said.
You should try it yourself, you really
should.

But let's say it began in the bar.
Let's say that. It could even be the
truth of the matter. Very likely it did
begin there. Sometimes 1 think it be-

|C' ' ■■■

PHOTOGRAPHS BY LEN DE LESSIO

Let's say if happens
in a bar. Or a car.
Or a hospital.
Everything freezes.
Everything happens
at once.

Twilight Zone 65

THIS YEAR,
NEXT YEAR

gan someplace else, but in the end it
all comes to the same, very much the
same.

The bar was just a short cab ride
away from the track. 1 was in a cab,
and we passed the bar and 1 told the
cabbie to let me off there. It looked
like a good place, certainly quite as
good as the next. I don't recall where
1 had originally been going, or imag-
ined myself to be going, but it could
hardly have been very pressing.

1 was in a reasonably good mood.
1 had just lined up a treble which had
paid off somewhere in the region of
five or ten thousand dollars, anyway
a great deal of money, more than 1
could usually put my hands on. I sat
down at the long glass bar and
watched the tropical fish swirm up
and down in the floodlit aquarium be-
neath the glass. It was an interesting
sort of effect, if not exactly thrilling.
I ordered a double vodka, over ice.

The bartender seemed familiar, al-
though not as a bartender per se. It
just seemed to me that I'd seen the
man before in one context or another.
I remember thinking, in fact, that he
didn't look very much like a bartend-
er, more along the lines of a hotel
desk clerk, some sort of error at cen-
tral casting. But it didn't bother me all
that much, not at the time; I didn't
rack my brains to place the guy.

I sat at the bar and finished my
first drink and went to work on
another. I watched the fish swim
around and around. When I got tired
of that I got up and crossed to an
empty booth.

The bar was dimly lit, perhaps to
heighten the impact of the tropical
fish. And cold, very cold. The air
conditioning was running rather too
efficiently. It was early, I think. The
place was almost empty, there were
hardly half a dozen customers there.
Or perhaps it was just a lousy place.
There was a booth full of salesman
types at the far end of the room.
There was me. And there was her.

She was sitting, alone, at the far
end of the fishtank bar, just before the
pay phones and the washrooms. And
it was strange that I hadn't seen her
when I came in, very strange, because
she had it all right, whatever it was,
she had it. \ actuaWy shivered in that

first flash of recognition.

She was dressed casually, summer
casual, the details I don't quite recall.
Dark hair cut short, or perhaps just
pinned back from her face. The eyes
were the most astonishing.

I must have been staring, without
meaning to, because suddenly she was
looking right at me. She seemed to
smile, although it was a very ambigu-
ous kind of smile, perhaps more of a
nervous mannerism if it was any kind
of smile at all. But I took it for
enough of an invitation to get up and
walk across to her. Or at least, I took
a couple of steps in that general direc-
tion, with that intent, drawn toward
her like some plant pursuing its trop-
ism toward the sun, feeling very good,
very excited, a very promising kind of
excitement.

And then I stopped in my tracks.
Very likely I stumbled. I wasn't aware
of exactly what I was doing, only of

the thoughts in my head, the thoughts
and the pictures and the noise.

Perhaps it was the drink. When I
drink too much or too fast I some-
times stop seeing things. But it could
have been something else, some other
detail that tipped me off. It could
have been that the hands of the clock
on the wall were moving too slow, for
example. That would certainly have
been careless, if so, but these little
details can be very hard to get right,
and sometimes things are surprisingly
slipshod.

It could have been the clock, and
it could have been the drink, and it
could have been the bartender, the
wrongness of the bartender. And it
could have been something else again.

But it happened. For the very first
time, perhaps, or maybe tor the tit-

tieth time, but it happened. The whole
thing slipped away from me, all of it,
the bar, the people, everything. I saw
all the way through and there was no
bar, no people, and I was nowhere at
all. There was only a blankness, a
cool and grey and muffled kind of
blankness.

All of this took just a few mo-
ments, hardly any time at all, but
quite long enough. Because when it
came back, everything seemed wrong.
Disorganized, chaotic, wrong. The
murmur of the salesman types, which
I could now hear with an unnatural
clarity, was just meaningless noise.
And the people, they were just dum-
mies, very stifi' dummies, hardly even
moving their lips.

She was still there at the end of
the bar, still seeming to smile. But I
felt empty, all the way through, com-
pletely washed out. And then angry,
really angry, shaking with rage.

flooded with adrenalin, a massive
sympathetic nervous system reaction.
Hands sweating, heart pumping, ears
buzzing, the whole bit. Angry at my-
self, and at whoever or whatever had
done this thing to me.

I grabbed a bottle and smashed it
on a table and went for her throat
with the jagged edge. The dummies
jumped up out of their booth to try
and stop me, but they were too slow,
way too slow.

I don't know if there's any point
in trying to put this in any particular
order. It seems to me that one order
is as good as the next. The thing at
the party happened early on, I think,
the first thing at the party. But it's
bard to keep a'\ Vbe parties, separate in

Let’s say it
began at the
bar. Let’s say
that. It could
even be the
truth of
the matter.

66 Twilight Zone

my mind, they fuse togetlier, blend in-
to one agonizingly protracted se-
quence. But let's say this was the first
time, the very first party, let's say
that.

The house was on the ocean, on
the cliffs above an ocean, or maybe
just a lake; it doesn't really matter
either way. A big party in a big
house, and I wasn't enjoying myself
very much. I don't recall how I had
got there, and I didn't s(!em to know
any of the guests. People were stand-
ing around talking about sex, or art,
one or the other, perhaps a little
sports, too, whatever people talk
about at parties like that.

1 was talking to a woman, late
thirties, cropped blond hair, a lot of
rings. She was telling me about a new
European movie, or possibly an old
one. Schizoid, I thought. Jerky eye
movements, conversing from memories
of successful conversation, barely
holding together. She was coming
from that place where staying in con-
trol is a matter of faking what you
imagine it must be like to be in con-
trol. I knew that place, too. Maybe
that was why she gave me the jitters.
Or maybe I was giving them to
myself.

I found myself breat.iing hard, as
if I was about to suffocate. And then
the creepy feeling started at the base
of my spine, like a shiver of cold but
worse than that, much worse. It starts
that way sometimes, not always, but
sometimes. And then th(; fear.

I needed to speak, to establish
some kind of contact with the room,
with the time and place. I cut in on
her monologue.

"Listen," I said. "Sometimes I
think I'm in a movie. Sometimes I
think that."

Which isn't exactly what I
thought, not really, it was just the
closest I could get to describing how
I felt while still remainirg marginally
intelligible.

She didn't appreciate the interrup-
tion. She wasn't moved in the least by
my revelation.

"That's rather a banal idea," she
said. "Isn't it?"

And in the normal lun of things
I would have had to agree, that was
exactly right, she had driven straight
through to the heart of the matter,
there was really no question about
that. But at that particular juncture I
took it personally. I res(!nted her at-
tempt to belittle me. I forgot com-
pletely that I had no pride, no reason
for pride or shame or embarrassment
or anything of that ord(;r.

"Banal?" I echoed. "You're calling
me banal? Listen, lady, you look in
the dictionary under banality, they got
your face there."

Which was kind of a stock rejoin-
der, but it was the best I could come
up with then and there and it did
seem to work the trick. It made me
feel much better, back in the swing of
things, really connecting, if you see
what I mean.

I left the schizoid lady and moved
toward the bar for another drink. The
drink made me feel better still. And
then I saw her in the far cor-
ner of the room, in a knot of people,
looking bored. But of course looking
wonderful, too.

I don't remember exactly how she
was dressed, or how she was wearing
her hair that night. The details vary,
sometimes a great deal. But it was
her, no question about that, whoever
she was. The very same flash, exactly
as before, except that I'd never seen
her before, ever.

And so I joined her little group
and broke in on their conversation. I
don't remember what I said, or what
she said in reply. I have the pictures
in my head but not the sound, the
sound doesn't carry. In any case, she
smiled, and we talked some more.
And the group drifted apart and two
of us walked out on to the terrace.

We breathed the night air, we
looked down at the ocean or the lake.
It was all very wonderful, or so I ima-
gine. Only the moon was missing,
there was no moon in this scene or in
any of the encores. We were about to
kiss, or perhaps had already done so,
when I turned around. It was as if I
knew that someone was there, that her

husband or her lover had followed us
out.

He was a tall, somehow anony-
mous-looking character, not a terribly
forceful player. He struggled to look
angry, hurt, aggrieved. He spoke ac-
cusingly to her, to me. I hardly lis-
tened. The thing was becoming unreal,
unbelievable.

I told him to be quiet, that I had
to think. He would not be quiet. And
so 1 took a swing at his face, his
blank and meaningless face. And the
scenario <lissolved before 1 could con-
nect. Flickered away, just like that.

It was worse the next time, the
next time we did the party. This was
much later, or perhaps immediately
afterward. We had kissed, or were
about to kiss, when I turned around,
as if I knew that her husband or lover
had followed us out. And I did know.
And I knew how 1 knew.

I waited impatiently for the dum-
my to arrive, holding his glass and
looking pained. He started to shout,
gesticulate.

"Stop it," 1 told him. "Shut up.
We've done this little number before."

This time he smiled.

"True," he said.

And then the sequence began to
abort, but this time it did so in slow
motion. The sky went white, then just
blank. The terrace began to fade. The
dummies got hazy around the edges as
ifr disintegrating, returning to dust.

I stood frozen, watching all this,
wishing that I could somehow reverse
it, bring back the terrace, and the
ocean, and her. I reached out to touch
her dissolving arm. And she said.

Twilight Zone 67

THIS YEAR,
NEXT YEAR

quite clearly, "Leave me alone."

FIVE

We were on the beach, on some
sea or ocean somewhere, possibly the
Mediterranean, it looked very calm,
possibly the Adriataic. Sometimes I
think we are in the south of France
and sometimes 1 think we are in
Greece, but there are also those times
when we appear to be in Mexico. At
any rate, we were on the beach, lying
on reclining chairs outside some cafe,
sipping Campari soda or retsina and
taking the sun, no doubt on some
kind of vacation.

It was very quiet on the beach,
very calm, except for the screams of
the children splashing in the waves.
None of these children appear^ to be
ours. We sat there, drinking our
drinks and turning the pages of our
books, some sort of beach books. I no
longer recollect the titles, they were
not the sort of thing that would usual-
ly stick in your mind. And I felt very
relaxed, very calm.

"You can't beat the seaside," I

said.

"No," she said. "You really can't."

We went for lunch inside the cafe.
We sunbathed some more. We cooled
ourselves in the ocean or the sea.

Later we went back to our hotel,
an old but charming white stucco
hotel or perhaps a brand new one. We
went up to our room and we made
love.

Afterward we lay there, as the
dusk came down, listening to the
sounds drifting through our window,
music from a cruise boat mingling
with the waves rushing up on the
beach. And then the dusk turned into
night and the lights began to flicker
through the window.

1 got out of bed and crossed to
the window to look at the lights
stretching out along the waterfront in
an endless chain around the bay. She
joined me at the window and we sat
there looking at these lights together.

It was all very calm, very peace-
ful. It was the kind of moment you
might wish would last forever, except
that after a while I didn't. After a
while I started to get just a little
bored, just a little restless.

Perhaps this was all part of what

my analyst used to call an inability to
tolerate intimacy, and perhaps it was
something else again.

"Listen," I said. "You want to go
get some dinner?"

And then the lights went out.

S I X

Lunch in an expensive restaurant.
She was sitting there, waiting for me,
not looking good. She had been crying
and had made no attempt to hide it.

And she wouldn't speak to me, not a
word, would not even discuss the
menu. I ordered for both of us, maybe
the veal parmesan, maybe the special
Chinese for two.

We stared at each other. Or she
stared at me, and I shifted uncomfort-
ably in my seat. I felt guilty, or per-
haps ashamed. I had not been home
in two, three, four nights. I have good
reasons for my absence, I am sure of
that, although they elude me, have
eluded me all along. But this, in any

case, was only a small part of the
problem, although I do not recall the
rest of it. Some sort of breakdown in
communication, no doubt, no doubt
at all.

The waiter brought the first
course. I waited for her to begin
eating. Instead! she spoke, hardly a
whisper.

"No more," she said. "I can't take
anymore. This is the end."

"What?"

"The end, ' she said, louder this
time. And then once again, louder
still, loud enough to make people at
other tables turn their heads and
glance uneasily in our direction. "The
end."

"All right," I said. "All right, I
heard you."

A silence followed. I groped for
words.

"Look," 1 said, finally. "Don't."

I remembered the gift, then pulled
the small box out of my pocket.

"Look," I said. "Look at this."

I opened l:he box. Inside, nestled
deep down in the velvet, was a small
piece of rough stone, about the size of
a marble.

I waited anxiously for her reac-
tion. She stared at it for some time.

"Is this a joke?" she asked, finally.
"I mean, is this some kind of joke?"

"No joke," I said. "It's moon rock.
From the moon. Billions of years old."

"Really?" she said. "Really from
the moon?"

"Absolutely from the moon."

She smiled tentatively.

"I thought we could set it in a
ring, or maybe a necklace, whatever
you like."

She reached out to pick the stone
from the box.

"You see," I said. "You see that I
love you. Hov/ could you doubt it?"

Balancing :he stone in the palm of
her hand she fiegan, abruptly, to cry.
She threw it back at me across the
table.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"It's no good."

"Why not!"

"I thought," she said, "I thought it
would be cold."

She got up and started to run
toward the door. She knocked over
her chair as she took off, but it never
reached the floor. She was heading for
the door, but she never reached it, she
just got slowei- and slower, as if she
were running underwater, and finally
she froze in mid-stride.

I froze, too, my mouth open, try-
ing to shout siomething, I don't know
what, but 1 never got past the first

68 Twilight Zone

syllable. Matters remained like this for
a long time, a very long time. And
then the whole thing faded, merciful-
ly, away.

Driving scenes, recurrent driving
scenes. Curious in the sense that I
rarely drive, have hardly any memor-
ies of driving, do not recall ever own-
ing a car. And yet when I do drive
in these occurrences, it seems to come
naturally to me.

It's late afternoon and I'm driving
fast, too fast, out of town. I have the
feeling that I'm running away from
something, something I can't quite
bring to mind. Gathering storm clouds
lend an urgency to the proceedings.
Dusk falls. It will rain, soon, hard and
melodramatically.

At the entrance to the expressway
I stop for a hitchhiker, a woman
somewhere in her early twenties.

she asks. I wait to be told.

"Down here," she says. "Here on
the road. With the cars."

"Cars?"

"Shiny painted cars. Leather
upholstery, automatic four-speed gear-
shift, long-range, polished quartz,
halogen driving lamps ..."

"Stop it," I said. The insult is
obscure to me, but I find her tone of
voice, her flat and monotonous tone
of voice, offensive.

She subsides. The night comes
down. Rain begins to hammer against
the windshield. The driving is harder,
but I feel calmer. Then she starts up
again.

"Do you ever think," she asks,
"about the afterlife?"

"The what?"

"The afterlife."

"What about it?"

She is really getting on my nerves
now.

dressed in an old army coat, hair
covered by a scarf. She wears a but-
ton on the lapel of her coat, Sinatra
In Eighty-Eight, perhaps some sort of
joke. She reminds me of no one, in
fact hardly interests me at all.

I drive; she talks. She claims to
be a philosophy student. Her conver-
sation is wide-ranging but shallow.
Deeply shallow, I think, amusing my-
self as best I can.

She drones on about Wittgenstein.
I lose track. Finally, after perhaps fifty
miles of this, she says, "You're not
listening."

"No," I agree.

I'm too tired to be polite, tired of
driving, tired of her. The twilight is
ebbin'g into darkness, and I want to
keep my eyes on the road.

"You know where you belong?"

"This is it," she says. "The
afterlife. Here and now."

"I think," I say, very slowly, very
carefully, fighting down the sudden
strangeness in my stomach, "I heard
that before. I don't think that's a very
original notion."

"Original, shit," she says, dis-
gusted, and turns away, looking out
the window at the expressway.

In spite of myself, I feel com-
pelled to pursue the matter.

"What came before?" I ask.
"Before this?"

She shrugs. "I don't know. But I
know one thing. It was even worse."

The creeping sensation begins at
the back of my spine. I turn the radio
on; it's playing some old pop song
about undying love. Maybe I have
heard this song before, maybe it was

an old favorite of someone I once
knew, and maybe 1 have never heard
it before. But in any case, it's not
what 1 want to hear now, and besides
the reception is dreadful.

I punch the buttons, searching for
some other kind of music, but there's
the same song on every station, all the
way up the waveband, playing
through some terrible static, an ocean
of static. And then even the song
fades out, and there is only silence,
silence all the way up and down the
waveband.

The empty road stretches out
ahead of me, leading me deeper and
deeper into this empty world, but now
I know for sure, know that I must put
an end to this here and now. I have
taken as much as 1 am going to take.

I cut right across the far lane and
over the central median strip, into the
traffic coming the other way. My pas-
senger sits quietly, accepting my deci-
sion without comment.

It bothers me that I haven't seen
her, but not enough to stop me. I
have the feeling that I have already
seen her and that I'm not going to see
her again, not in this or any other
scenario, although of course 1 am
wrong, unless I am right.

EIGHT

Voices in the void. Between
scenarios. They seem to rebuke, me.

"Unsatisfactory," they say. "Disap-
pointing."

But they are not addressing me;
they talk only to each other. They do
not know that I am eavesdropping, or
simply do not care.

"Problems of design. Material
limitations."

I try to make contact, make my-
self heard.

"Listen," I say. "What's going on?
I have a right to know."

It seems, however, that 1 have no
right to know, none at all. They ig-
nore me, continue to discuss me. Per-
haps they don't hear me. Perhaps they
are not talking about me but about
something entirely different.

"Impending review. Possible
closure."

"Please," I say. "Please tell me. I
can't take it anymore. I really can't."

But I do take it. I take it again
and again.

NINE

I'm working on a tv series, a
long-running cop show. We're casting
our weekly quota of beautiful losers.
I'm just standing around, tuning in on
the latest argot. It's quite a surprise

. i Twilight Zone 69

THIS YEAR,
NEXT YEAR

when she turns up. At first I think I
must be mistaken.

She has changed, everything
about her has changed, the walk, the
style, her hair, her clothes, the whole
general look about her. I know that
she has changed because I remember
her from before. She has played some
significant part in my life, although I
cannot recall it in any great detail.
She has a high gloss to her now, an
almost palpable gloss, shielding her
from the world.

She does not get the part. She is
too young or too old or too tall,
something of that order. She takes it
calmly, it seems to be of little import-
ance to her.

1 invite her to have a drink with
me in a nearby bar. She agrees. *As we
drink, I, make attempts to reminisce,
but she is clearly uninterested in our
mutual past, in whatever it is that has
passed between us. We are strangers,
and perhaps- we always were.

My excitement at seeing her again
gives way to a sense of loss, a numb-
ness. There is no future here, no
future at all. Her eyes are secret,
closed away, sealed tight. There is no
longer any common ground.

1 make excuses and leave. I drive
home to my apartment. My head is
aching, aching badly, some kind of
migraine attack. There is a woman in
my apartment, sitting around and
reading my books and drinking my li-
quor, although I do not seem to recog-
nize her. We argue briefly. I go and
lock myself in the bathroom and take
the Seconal from the cabinet.

E N

I'm late getting around to her
apartment. On the phone she had
sounded upset, and 1 had been in no
hurry to face her. And I had work to
do, some kind of work.

I ring the doorbell once, twice, a
third time. No response. I think that
perhaps she is asleep, which would be
a relief, since I am in no real shape
to face up to her. But she has never
been a heavy sleeper, would not be
asleep so early, would not sleep
through the doorbell.

I dig in my pocket for my key
and let myself in. She isn't in the liv-
ing room, and she isn't in the bed-

room. There is a light burning under
the bathroom door. Presumably she is
in the bath, and this is why she has
failed to answer the door.

The door is unlatched and I push
it open. I find that I am correct, she
is indeed in the bath, way down in
the bath, underneath the dirty brown
water. The razor blade is embedded in
a bar of soap sitting tidily in the soap
dish. I do not recall whether she was
usually a tidy person.

I am sick in that bathroom for
some period of time. I vomit up

My body is
becoming
transparent, i
can see clear
through my
feet to the
carpet, the
peppermint
green carpet.
The sensation
is not
unpleasant.

everything I have to vomit into the
toilet bowl. And I cry, too, I cry a
good deal. Finally I go through to the
living room and pick up the telephone
to call the police, or an ambulance,
whatever people do in situations like
this.

What I get is a crossed line, what
I assume to be a crossed line.

"Darkness," says the voice on the
telephone. "Damnation."

I try to break the connection, but
the voice rolls on remorselessly.

"Famine," it says. "Darkness on
the face of the deep."

"Get off the line," I shout. "This
is an emergency. Would you please

get off the line."

But the vcDice continues, on and
on.

"Who is ihis" 1 ask. "Who the
fuck is this?"

There is a pause.

"Who are you?" the voice
counters. "Who do you think you
are?"

The question, for some reason,
terrifies me. Also, I cannot remember
my name.

"I know who you are," the voice
says, "I know who you are, and you
know who I am. And I have absolute-
ly no desire to speak to you."

E L k V E N

And now I am with my analyst.
I am with you, and once again you
are wasting my time and money.

"You never call her by name.
Why is that?"

Questions, always questions. I
sulk in silence. Momentarily, I think
that I must be back in the hospital.
But there are no bars on the windows.

"You're blocking me out. We're
making no progress at all."

"That's true," 1 say. "1 can't
disagree with that."

"There's no reason to be afraid . . ."

"Fear has nothing to do with it."

"1 understand ..."

"You understand nothing. I'm not
anything you think 1 am. If you do."

But you are nothing if not
persistent.

"What connection do you see . .

"I see no connection, no connec-
tions. There are no connections.
Anywhere. Anywhere at all."

I get up and walk toward the
door.

"I can understand the reasons for
your distress .

Furious, I :urn on my heel.

"No you can't. You can't under-
stand me at all. You can't understand
a word I say, and there is absolutely
no sense in pretending otherwise."

I turn back, reach for the do'or
handle. My hand passes right through
it.

I look down. My body is becom-
ing transparent. I can see clear
through my fe(!t to the carpet, the
peppermint greim carpet. The sensa-
tion is not unpleasant. I feel strangely
calm.

"Hey," I say. "I'm disappearing."

You look hard at me. You shrug.
"Right," you say. "You're fading away.
Too bad."

You look away. Stare out through
the window.

I continue to disappear, ■

70 Twilight Zone

BOOKS

■ mws^imimmmmMm

(continued from page 12)
habitat worlds would ba desirable,
and it is tacitly agreed that the op-
pressed or legitimately dissatisfied
have the right to make changes;
there is no question of gung ho for
space and mankind. But after the
revolution is over, will the grafting
Granders or the peoples of the other
little worlds do any better than the
Corporation? There is a momentary
feeling of holiday, but tne future is
saturated with potential violence. The
saving grace may be the laughter
that permeates The Centrifugal
Rickshaw Dancer.

As I was reading Watkins’s
novel, 1 kept realizing that Cord-
wainer Smith (alias Paul Linebarger)
was peeping at me out of the pages.
There is the same sort of bizarre im-
agination and the willingness to push
ideas to reductio ad absurdum, the
same lopsided drives and dazzling,
half-weird inventiveness. Watkins, it is
true, does not produce the dark un-
dertones of Smith’s work, nor its tan-
talizing thought-provoking aspects, nor
its jaggedness. Nevertlieless, The
Centrifugal Rickshaw Dancer is a
fascinating work on its own, admir-
able in its tight control. It would be
unfair to both Linebarger and Wat-
kins if I said that Watkins may devel-
op into the new Cordwainer, for such
a comment would depreciate Smith’s
uniqueness and Watkins’s originality,
but it would be fair to say that Wat-
kins may be heading tov/ard Smith’s
empty seat.

Editor’s note: The second in the
Rickshaw Dancer series is due out in
June.

Quite different from Venus of
Dreams and The Centrifugal
Rickshaw Dancer is Freedom
Beach by James Patrick Kelly and
John Kessel (Bluejay, $8.95). A story
of inner space, it is an individuation
novel describing in fantastic terms
the restructuring of a shattered, inef-
fectual would-be writer. Parts of it
have been published in the mags.

Perhaps I gave away a little too
much when I described it as an in-
dividuation novel, since the authors
do not let the secret out until the
very last— although it will be a slug-
gish reader who cannot figure things
out a good deal sooner. In any case,
as with a good mystery story, the im-
portant part of Freedom Beach is not

its guessable puzzle aspect, but
good writing.

Shaun Reed awakens without
memories on a strange strand called
Freedom Beach, into a country club
situation with a group of young peo-
ple. The others have adapted to life
of bathing, ball-playing, and sex, but
Shaun cannot accept it. He compul-
sively strives to get behind the
beach, both physically and figurative-
ly, but his associates will not or can-
not explain the talking statues; will
reply only cryptically, if at all; and, as
Shaun learns, breaking the house
rules about not injuring others and
not writing brings swift punishment.

What is this strange life, asks
the rebellious Shaun. Perhaps Myr-
na, with whom he is most intimate,
knows more than he does, but she
will not say and soon leaves the
beach— by suicide. Then there are
the islands, far out, almost invisible,
guarded by sharks. What is out
there? And, most of all, who are the
dreamers and what bargain did
Shaun make with them?

The remaking of Shaun pro-
ceeds partly in terms of dream
episodes, each of which reduces a
psychic sprain or misdirection in
Shaun. Outstanding among them is
Shaun’s participation in a rendering
of the Faust story in terms of a Marx
Brothers motion picture, with Groucho
as Faust. The humor, the pratfalls, the
closet doings, and the mistaken iden-
tities are beautifully handled. Another
episode, less successful, blends
Shaun’s life with a fantasized life of
Raymond Chandler, hardboil and all,
as both live out their suicidal drives.
A third is Shaun’s visit to the walled-
in world of Emily Bronte, where
spiritual isolation is brough home to
him. There are other episodes, the
stylistic virtuosity of which is
enviable.

Freedom Beach is not as gut-
wrenching as Philip Dick’s better
“reality” work, nor as profound as
Alasdair Gray’s Lanark, perhaps
because it is too optimistic, perhaps
because it is a little too mechanical
in its progress. Nevertheless, it is
certainly worth reading, and is one of
the better novels of the year. Not on-
ly is the writing unusually stylish, but
the story is filled with good detail
and really excellent characteriza-
tions, and the surreal and everyday
are handled with equal skill. ■

BOOK NOTES

(continued from page 15)

man returns to the boarding house
and the hang-outs of his college
years— but the resolution is abrupt
and rather silly.

“The Lake” by Ray Bradbury
concerns a young boy who has lost
his girlfriend by drowning: there is a
sweetness and a sadness to the
story, but it has a rough, fragmentary
quality.

TZ readers may be interested in
Anne Serling’s adaptation of her
father’s tv script, “The Changing of
the Guard.” The story, a kind of
supernatural Goodbye, Mr. Chips was
a bit too maudlin for my tastes,
though.

I did like, very much, Edward
Page Mitchell’s “An Uncommon Sort
of Spectre,” a beautifully written tale
that moves between barbed irony
and light burlesque. And the
premise, which I won’t reveal here,
has the reader wondering up to the
very end, who is the haunter and
who is the haunted.

Also excellent is Howard Gold-
smith’s “The Voices of El Dorado,”
which manages to generate more
tension than any other story in the
book. It concerns a boy who -finds
himself iost in dangerous territory,
and who manages to stay alive by
his wits, physical ability, and the help
of a couple of benign ghosts.

This collection brings to mind a
point that has been increasingly
bothering me. Does the name Martin
H. Greenberg sound familiar? Over
the past half dozen or so years Mr.
Greenberg, often in colloboration
with Charles Waugh, or Joseph
dander, and very often with Mr.
Asimov, has produced scores of an-
thologies, flooding the market with a
prolificity that puts former anthology
champ Roger Elwood to shame.

Do we need all these collec-
tions? Perhaps. But I get the feeling
that these things are being cranked
out assembly-line style . . . and that
makes me uncomfortable.

However, I can recommended
the second collection of Dennis Etch-
ison’s stories. Red Dreams. The
regular edition has sold out, and only
arfew copies of the signed limited
edition remain (Scream Press $35).
The publisher will send a catalog
upon request. Write to: Scream
Press, P.O. Box 8531, Santa Cruz,
CA 95061. ■

Twilight Zone 71

Ky had risen from the fire. In the bishop's
arms, he had come back to life, a miracle
on a pillar of flame — faith in a flash of
light. But whose light?

only after passing through a deceptive-
ly ancient-looking gate and traveling
along a short gravel driveway overhung
with robust evergreens. Indeed, the
trees did an excellent job of concealing
the building from the eyes of unwel-
come passers-by or visitors. Not that
anyone unwanted was likely to make
it past the uniformed guards at the gate
or even over the wall itself. And, from
what the fawning portiere had said one
afternoon in response to the bishop's
question, there were patrol-dogs, two
swaggering German shepherds, power-
ful enough to chew up a whole . , . oh,
what part of the anatomy had he said?
Bishop McCoy sighed again.

Leaning against the railing of the
terrace, he could see the usually vibrant
green of Monte Mario as it sloped
down to the enormous city. This morn-
ing, with the gathering clouds, every-
thing looked a paler, less animated
version of itself. Rome extended with-
out much apparent order. But it was,
after all, eternal; it had outlasted all
the efforts of puny little m.en with their
charts and plans. Below to his left, par-
tially visible, close to the foot of the
hill, was the Foro Italico, a sports facili-
ty built by Mussolini, combining blus-
tery Fascist architecture and classical
statuary. For <'t moment, the bishop's
gaze settled cn the winding Tiber,
periodically stajjled in place by a varie-
ty of bridges, large, small, ancient,

he first thing he saw after
sliding open the glass door and
striding out onto the terrace was
the usual

pattern of clouds
ranged across the sky. Shifting
quickly, as if whipped by the wind, the
clouds moved like grey tumblers mak-
ing their antic way across an enormous
blue screen. They seemed to be growing
darker and thicker, however, and it
seemed likely that soon they would
block out the already sullen sun al-
together. "Massing," thought the bishop,
taking note of the religious pun. He
decided with a sigh that the radio an-
nouncer had been right, and that the
day would indeed be overcast. It had
been Bishop McCoy's habit these last
few days to spend an early hour or two
on the terrace working on his exten-
sive correspondence or glancing over
the galleys of his most recent book. In
the mild atmosphere of a late Roman
spring, the bishop could rest quietly
and pass his vacation pleasantly
* enough.

The apartment — the pent-
house or flffico — was the pro-
perty of a wealthy Italian in-

K strialist, a friend of a
riend. It was part of an
exclusive eight-story build-
ing on the side of Monte
Mario, one of the hills
overlooking Rome. One
reached the apartments

Twilight Zone 73

modern. Where was the Ponte Milvio,
he wondered, where Constantine had
received a sign from God? Slightly to
his right, looming amid the smaller
buildings, immediately noticeable, was
St. Peter's and the rest of the Vatican.
The dome always reminded him of a
giant miter; and seen from his vantage,
the colonnades looked like a pair of
vast arms welcoming the people of the
world.

He wondered if— one day — they
would extend a special welcome to him.
No, such thoughts were not proper,
and it was better not to pursue them.
For here in Rome, where history was
palpable and inescapable, one knew
that time was not to be rushed, that
it flowed much like the Tiber, to its
own secret rhythms and laws, a«d who
could say when the unexpected might
happen? Who could say when a call
might be sounded, a revelation made?

"Well," he murmured, turning
away from the railing, wondering how
to deal with the change in weather.
He sighed again. Somehow, it would
not do to pass the morning as usual
there on the terrace under a grey sky.
He would feel, he thought, surprised
at himself, too vulnerable without the
beneficent sun warm on his shoulders.
The clouds, he saw, had almost com-
pleted their task. Still, it did not
necessarily mean rain.

"Your espresso. Your Excellency,"
said Ky in his flat, accented English,
bearing down upon him with a glisten-
ing salver. Bishop McCoy, as usual,
cringed slightly at the honorific, but
by now had surrendered the struggle:
let Ky speak as he desired. For over
fifteen years, ever since their ex-
perience together during the Vietnam
War when McCoy had been an army
chaplain — a rather zealous one at first,
perhaps, and too much the innocent —
Ky had been his devoted servant. And
yet, thought the bishop with a sense
of irony, not for the first time, I am
the servant of the people.

For him, in a private way, Ky had
become almost as much a symbol as
St. Peter's dome: a constant reminder
of certainty and a stimulus to hope in
a world that seemed often on the verge
of chaos. It was a picture that could
never be erased: Ky's hand reaching out
of the fire, beseeching, moments before

his death. Later, Ky had resisted any
attempt to dislodge him; his life, Ky
explained, was no longer his own, and
belonged to the man who had saved
him. For several months after the inci-
dent, when McCoy had still been in
Vietnam, he had done his best to find
Ky a different life, but to no avail.
Finally, he had allowed Ky to stay,
and insisted that he accept a modest
salary. His presence was now most
natural — if still a little unorthodox.
How the old ladies of Brooklyn had
chattered! And here he was now: the
Vietnamese man, in Rome, speaking
English.

McCoy sat quietly as Ky moved
the cup, pot, and plate of croissants
from the tray onto the outdoor table.
He was indeed an odd-looking fellow,
thought the bishop, with his broad,
scarred face, his twisted shoulder, and
his shambling walk. But he had sur-
vived, praise God, the most terrible
ordeal; someone who by all rights, by
any earthly reckoning, should have
been dead had little cause to com-
plain. Let me accept my own fate with
such equanimity, thought McCoy. Still,
he told himself with his usual stirrings
of ambivalence, it was hard ever to
know what the man was thinking. He
took a tentative sip of the bitter coffee
as the steam swirled up his nostrils,
and wondered again about those im-
perturbable, uncommunicative eyes.

Ky withdrew in his awkward but
silent fashion, and the bishop was left
alone on the penthouse terrace to
drink his morning coffee, nibble at the
fresh pastries, and lazily study the
open sky above the railing. The clouds
continued to mass. Most peculiar. In
his short-sleeved knit shirt, McCoy
was feeling a little chilly. As usual,
though, his notebook was at hand,
and a few phrases and ideas came to
mind. It was not quite possible, of
course, to be all things to all people,
yet he prided himself on having done
his share as conciliator. In the hubbub
and public glare of the current day.
Bishop McCoy had a well-deserved re-
putation for getting things done. Pick-
ing up his pen, he began an address
to that hot-headed steering committee
that had written to him: "Brothers and
sisters in Christ, much as I believe
that Our Holy Father has not ..." He
hesitated. "... not done justice to? not
grasped the quintessence of? the so-
called theology of revolution, I feel it
is precipitous, to say the least, to ..."
He smiled, thinking of Cardinal Ardiz-
zone, his former mentor, a perfect ex-
ample of what Henry James called a
"subtle Roman." Cardinal and bishop.

Some characterized them now as ri-
vals; that, of course, was nonsense.
But truly McCoy had learned well the
diplomatic arts from him.

His pen moved restlessly, but
gave no shadow. It was unseasonably
cool.

"There you are!"

Startled to hear a woman's voice,
and of all things speaking in English,
he dropped his pen. By the time he
looked up, she was nearly upon him:
he glimpsed a luxuriant mane of blond
hair, full scarlet lips, darkly glowing
eyes accentuated with mascara. Then,
before he could rise, she was leaning
over. A strong, nearly animal scent
filled his nostrils; and she kissed him
firmly on the cheek. He was more sur-

“Are you so
holy a man?”
She leaned
forward so
provocatively,
he could
hardly
restrsiin a
laugh.

prised than ever. It took him a few
moments to respond.

"Mi rincresce, ma non La capisco."
He had managed to trot out his mea-
ger Italian, a useful phrase informing
his would-be interlocutor of his inabil-
ity to understa.nd.

"Oh, please. Bishop McCoy, there's
no need to pretend."

He considered trying his Italian
again, but another glance at her
shrewd, animated face told him it was
not worth it. The woman, spinning
about, walked with a brisk click-clack
of her high heels to the railing; there
was a calculaled swing to her hips
that made him smile wryly. What in
the world could this sensual creature
want with hirr'.l

She spun back, still smiling. "Very

74 Twilight Zone

nice, very nice indeed. You have fine
friends, I see."

"How did you find me? . . . How,
now that I think of it, did you get iriT

"Oh, we have our ways," she
said, tossing her mane.

"We? There's more of you?"

"I'm a reporter, Youi' Excellency."

"A reporter?" He suppressed a
fuller reply. Then he sighed. "But
how . . . ?"

"Yes, you're incognito, I know.
Thought you'd given us the slip, didn't
you? Hiding out in the Eternal City of
all places! Well, we're persistent."

The bishop sat down wearily, all
at once feeling his years. 'But how did
you get in here! Throu.gh the gate?
Past the portiere! Past Ky? ... I

didn't even hear the terrace doors
open."

"So engrossed in our writing, eh?
. Don't worry, I respect that, very
much." She smiled, her full red lips
nearly a caricature. "We're brothers,
sisters, aren't we?" She tossed her small
handbag on the table and prepared to
sit beside him. "Nice view you have
here. Rome for the taking, so to
speak." She gave a little wiggle in the
heavy metal chair, then crossed her
legs. She did not pull hei' skirt down,
and McCoy glanced away from the too
generous display of sleek, nyloned flesh.

"What can I do for you. Miss
." He stretched the word out, wait-
ing for her to provide the information.

"Landers, Veronica Landers is the
name. From the Washington Post."

"Good God!" he exclaimed, pass-
ing a hand over his eyes.

"Bishop McCoy, please! Taking
the Lord's name in vain! What would
the less sophisticated among us say?"
Her smile broadened again, but there
seemed to be little warmth in her eyes.
He stared at her, trying to place her
accent, to estimate how old she was
beneath the garish make-up and the
almost parodic blond hair. There was
something about her . . . "Does the
Vatican know where you are?" she
asked suddenly.

"Since this is a private vacation —
and a pitifully brief one — I really don't
think that's any concern of yours." He
played with the handle of his small cup.

"Perhaps not." She tapped her
cheek, and for the first time the bishop
noticed that she was wearing old-
fashioned gloves, almost like something
from the fifties. Certainly, for an in-
vestigative reporter, she dressed in a
rather incongruous fashion. "But sure-
ly you admit that you are newsworthy

— a fresh spokesman of hope for those
dissatisfied with the status quo! World
affairs being what they are ..."

"Where did you say you were
from?"

"The Times. One of our European
correspondents." She gave him another
smile, and leaned forward conspirator-
ially. Again, his senses swam with the
powerful, ambiguous odor. "Perhaps
you have read me? Last week, on the
West German terrorists, or the Spanish
financial scandals?"

"I'm afraid I must have missed it."

"Ah . . . Well, I'll try to retain my
self-esteem."

Bishop McCoy was beginning to
feel more and more uneasy. He touched
his cheek, where she had so boldly
kissed him, and wondered whether she
had left a bright, telltale mark: a sign
of what? No doubt it was his imagina-
tion, but his skin felt warm, almost
feverish. When he caught her looking
at him, he abruptly turned his gaze
back to the sky. There was hardly a
glimmer of the sun beyond the scowl-
ing clouds. "You never did tell me.
Miss Landers, why you've come here."

"Merely doing my job. You're a
major public figure, you know. What-
ever you do is news. And if you're
taking a vacation from the public eye

— lying low, as it were, in the Pope's
backyard — well!" She shrugged.

"So my doing nothing is note-
worthy?" he asked coldly. He won-
dered: mid-twenties? Mid-forties, ex-
ceptionally well preserved? So much
powder and mascara: more like a tart,
pardon the expression, than the next

Barbara Walters or Oriana Fallaci.

"Is it really nothing, your excel-
lency? No doubt you've been thinking
. . . heavily." Her lips pursed. "Con-
sider my point of view: to discover
the famous Bishop Gerald McCoy,
perched above Rome — and the Vatican
— like an ambitious general returned
to throw his enormous shadow upon
the imperial city!"

"You have a particularly vivid im-
agination, Miss Landers."

"I wonder if you have any ambi-
tions?"

"I am merely a man doing his job
as well as he can. I possess a certain
amount of energy. Beyond that . . ."
He made an impatient gesture. "Please
don't dredge up those fantasies about
the first American pope and so forth.
In the first place, one does not decide
to become pope; one is chosen. And
why talk about remote possibilities,
no doubt at least ten years in the
future, if ever."

"You have your denials nicely
prepared," said the woman. She pro-
duced a few items from her bag: eye
liner, lipstick, a small notebook, a Bic
pen. "Do you have any response to
what Cardinal Weldon of Chicago
said about you? 'That smiling televi-
sion star who thinks he's the holiest
man on God's green earth,' as I recall."

"Where is the earth green these
days?" replied Bishop McCoy with a
wry smiJe. "Well, parts of Monte
Mario, of course ..."

"That's all you have to say?"

"What else can I say? That Car-
dinal Weldon has a way with words?"

"Are you so holy a man?" She
leaned forward in so provocative a
manner that he could not restrain a
laugh. "I hope that my coming here
has not compromised you . . . What
would the neighbors think!"

The bishop leaned back, regaining
some breathing-room. "My dear Miss
Landers, as far as I know, the neigh-
bors have no idea who I am, and
since I don't sport a clerical collar or
a miter out here on the terrace ..."

"A wolf in sheep's clothing,

wouldn't you say?"

"Oh, enough. Miss Landers. If

this is all you and the Times are in-
terested in. I'll have to ask you to
leave."

"The Post, you mean." She made
a quick notation in her book. "I should
say that there's at least one pair of
eyes upon us this very moment." She
waved over the bishop's shoulder.

"Rather matronly woman; fancy jew-
els; big nose. Staring out the window
of the next apartment building. It

■ t Twilight Zone 75

!•

must be Princess Balduino." McCoy
did not turn to look. "But then, she's
a believer, too, no doubt."

"Miss Landers, I find your manner
insulting, and 1 do indeed ask you to
leave this moment."

"And if I refuse?"

"My man will escort you out."

"Oh, that would be nice. And
what would the newspaper-reading
public think: 'Reporter Brutalized By
Bishop's Thug!' Tut-tut."

He paused before replying. "Act-
ually, Miss Landers — if that is your
name — I don't think you're a reporter
at all. Ah, here's Ky, to help you find
your way to the door." The servant
approached in his shambling way, his
face grey beneath the overcast sky.
"Ky, this lady will be leaving now.
Please show her the way out."

Ky made a brief bow, then turned
to the woman. He was about to touch
her elbow when his hand seemed to
freeze. Annoyed, McCoy noticed that
she was smiling broadly. Her eyes
were fixed on the Vietnamese man's,
and he appeared incapable of making
the slightest movement. The bishop
gritted his teeth.

"Ky, show this woman to the
door," he said, more loudly.

"Yes, Your Excellency," he replied,
but made no further motion.

"I seem to have fascinated him,"
murmured the woman. "Hasn't he ever
seen a female before? Surely you do
not sequester yourselves from half of
humanity!"

Bishop McCoy stared at his ser-
vant, his annoyance quickly giving
way to wonder. The man seemed part
of a strange tableau being enacted on
this terrace beneath a leaden sky: but
for what purpose?

"Ugly fellow, let's be honest about
it. Vietnamese?"

"Yes," said McCoy, half listening, his
mind racing in search of explanations.

"The person whose life you saved
during the war, then. Then dead man
who lived?" Her voice was low, in-
sinuating, unpleasant.

"How did you know that!" de-
manded the bishop sharply, twisting
in his chair. All at once his cheek felt
warm again — no, hot — and he had a
sudden mental image of the lipstick
stain glowering red like a virulent

parasite. It could not be sunburn. His
resentment flared at this sardonic
young (old?) woman who had invaded
his retreat, made her offensive charges,
and disrupted his day. He was begin-
ning to doubt that he'd recover his
equanimity and perspective in time to
do some decent work. And now this
prying about Ky!

"So it was!" she exclaimed with
evident satisfaction.

"How did you know?" His fingers
brushed at his cheek, and the sensa-
tion was acute and unpleasant.

"You've dropped a few hints along
the way, you must admit that, my
dear Bishop McCoy. A curious strat-
egy, though: as if you wanted your
readers' praise but felt at the same
time humble, unworthy." She clucked.
"I really think a more forthright state-
ment on the case would have been
more effective . . . instead of your coy
little half-congratulatory asides." A
paperback book had appeared in her
hands, and she was leafing through its
pages. "Here. I quote: 'In the senseless
conflagaration that was the Vietnam
War, many a man found his certain-
ties destroyed; those of us who
witnessed death and suffering at first
hand felt our smug little worlds
crumbling beneath our feet. One such
participant described an experience in
a small village ..."

McCoy's mind retreated from the
safe, abstract prose, and he found
himself reliving those horrible, miracu-
lous minutes. The soldier was dead in
his arms, and McCoy wandered in a
daze into the holocaust of the burning
village, not heeding the warning calls
of the Americans and the ARVNs,
scarcely noticing the whine of bullets,
the crash of buildings collapsing, the
thunder of explosions. Suddenly he
was at the threshold of a destroyed
hut, staring at a Vietnamese peasant
who was pinned under burning wreck-
age. The man was barely alive, and in
the flames that roared around him his
eyes pleaded. Let him die, was McCoy's
first thought. Don't give him false
hope. If by some miracle he could
force his way into the fiery hut and
pull him free, the man would be dead
soon anyway, burned and crushed and
consumed by a vision of despair that
nobody could long sustain. He was
dying, he was dead — but McCoy
struggled forward. A burning rafter
staggered him; his outstretched hands
were the color of flames. He felt him-
self falling . . .

"I saved him. Somehow, I saved
him."

The woman looked up, her smile

more ambiguous than ever. "Surely it
was impossible!"

"It was. He was pinned under by
hundreds and hundreds of pounds of
debris, wood, dirt. The fire was every-
where. Yet I saved him. I dug him
out, even as the place collapsed
around me, and my retreat was cut
off." His hand trembling; he reached
out and touched Ky on the arm, as if
to verify the recollection. Ky was
there, solid. The servant made a quiet
sound and moved a step or two back
from the table. "So much is fragment-
ed, or lost. It may have been a mira-
cle," he added in a quiet voice.

“May have been? You seem to
suggest something more positive than
that in this account," she said, giving

In the
senseless
conflagration
that was the
Vietnamese
War, many a
man found
his certainties
destroyed.

the book a little flip.

"Who can say what is a miracle
and what is not? In our private lives
especially, when there is no one else
to see ... "

"So you believed it to be a miracle."

He did not answer for a few mo-
ments, his eyes resting somewhat shy-
ly on Ky. "God does not vouchsafe us
many miracles, unequivocal miracles —
visions, acts. (Dnly a few ..."

"You doubt yourself, then?"

"No. I cannot explain it otherwise
... By all rights, both of us should
have died then and there. To me, yes,
it was a mir 2 :cle." Straightening his
back with an effort, he turned to con-
front her. "Now that I've said it. Miss
. . . Landers? . . perhaps you'll feel
more inclined to leave. You have a

76 Twilight Zone

story now? Perhaps not quite for the
Times, but the National Enquirer!”

"But a man who has lived through
a miraclel” She plunged her hands into
her lap, feigning a girlish excitement.
"Surely he would be profoundly
changed!" She pursed her lips, then
slowly smiled. He saw little beyond
the brilliant red lips, reminding him of
the fire; then for a terrif/ing moment
his vision seemed to cloud. "It would
not surprise me in the least to learn
that such a man might feel himself
privileged in certain significant ways.
He might very well be inspired, driven
to achieve more than mere mortals
could hope to do."

Now he was staring into her eyes,
letting her words twist sharply through

his mind, and he could not stop them
as they bored ever more deeply into
the private corners where his secret
lived, the ambition whose existence he
had never brought himsell' to admit. It
was too painful. And even now, as he
breathed brokenly, a voice was telling
him that there was nothing wrong,
that some indeed were called, that the
weak and timid person was the one
who fled from responsibility. Would
God call, only to let Himself be
rejected?

In that great moment of doubt,
when there had been only nothingness
— shrinking even the fire lo a colorless
insignificance — when nothingness filled
the universe, he had begged. And been
answered. It was his rock, solid, un-
forgettable, an unmoving island in the

dark seas of chaos. But then he heard
her speaking again. "... if this, only
this, were true, then nothing was ever
too great to overcome. With this an-
chor, this certainty ..." How she
droned on, mimicking his innermost
thoughts, mocking them with her tone,
trying to impugn his devotion and
sacrifices. He wouldn't stand for it!
No; he must. It was the right way.

His smile was that of an unworld-
ly martyr poised in a Renaissance
painting. Take these stones, lay these
faggots on the pyre. But it did not
last. It could not. He was, as he knew
himself to be, too human. He let her
speak for a few seconds more, then
rose slowly from his chair. Could it be
morning still? Where had the sun van-
ished? Dizzy. The left side of his face
tingled, but he would not touch it.
God tests those He chooses. When he
stared at the sky, the clouds seemed
to swirl darkly, threatening rain, thun-
der, or something greater. He blinked.
Beyond the clouds, just out of sight,
was there something lurking, hiding,
teasing? Vague forms, nearly as insub-
stantial as the clouds themselves?

Bishop McCoy quivered, feeling
her voice echoing inside his head. He
lumbered to the railing and looked
down, toward Rome, toward certain-
ty. It was all recognizable, the city he
loved, the city that had lasted; through
the twilight, he glimpsed the sprawl of
ruins, sleek marble and steel apartment
buildings, the plain exteriors of
Counter-Reformation churches, modern
obelisks, the Tiber following its eter-
nal route — but how leaden it looked
now, reflecting the sky! His gaze tra-
veled to the largest dome of all.

"And this — could it all be yours?"

"I ... don't want it," he replied,
turning violently to where she now
stood, casually leaning her elbows on
the railing. "It's not mine to have, it's
no one's to give."

"Yes, that's the proper response.
But perhaps it's what you deserve."

"I've told you. Go! Leave now!

. . . Leave me alone!"

"But it's all nothing finally, isn't
it? Nothing at all. All a waste, a nulli-
ty. We know that, don't we?" She
waved, her hands darting out into the
abyss. "The coming of the missiles,
slaughter in India, revolution and car-
nage in Central America, bombs in
London department stores, tanks in
Afghanistan, children dying in every
corner . . . You may as well admit it,
my dear bishop, and pray that the
flood comes soon. Please, Lord, show
Your mercy and kill my sick world!"

"You're wrong!" he shouted. The

breeze whipped her hair around, blond
flames. He could not bear to look
directly at her mouth.

"Oh, yes, that's right. There's Ky,
isn't there. As long as there's Ky, she
said laughing, "As long as there's Kv!"

"I saw it. I lived it."

"Yes, of course. Don't I know it!"
She turned slightly. 'Come here, Ky."
The Vietnamese man shambled for-
ward, his expression blank. "You see
how obedient he is? You've been lead-
ing a comfortable life. Your Excellen-
cy. Ah, here he is, your emblem of
faith, your charm against despair."

Clutching the railing, McCoy
looked on, wanting to close his eyes,
wanting to run to the safety of the
apartment, away from her words,
away from the bleak clouds that were
settling lower on the horizon, swallow-
ing all the air. "Ky, please get me my
sweater," he managed to say. A faint
hope that behaving normally would
bring about normalcy. "Ky?"

"No, Ky. Stay, And show me -
show /liw — what you can do. The
words dripped with pride. My little
miracle."

"No, no!" the bishop shouted,
reaching out.

But he could do nothing. Not
even shield his eyes. Still without ex-
pression, Ky raised his arms, seized
hold of his close-cropped head, and
pulled it off. Out spurted a dark oily
stream, joshing from his hollow neck,
spewing forth hundreds of tiny crea-
tures, some finned, webbed, scaly,
with rolling eyes and black broken
teeth, others gelatinous pustular, the
color of decayed liver, all dropping
onto the terrace, splattering, then curl-
ing and twisting about his feet. They
mewled and gibbered like idiot chil-
dren, pulsating, oozing, gesticulating
flopping about on the pavement.

McCoy did not look up. For a
moment, he stared at Ky's stolid legs.
He felt his heart struggle, but it was
punctured, deflated: nothingness

poured in. Without another word, he
flung himself over the railing, eight
stories to fall, time enough to pray,
time enough to refuse.

Alone on the terrace, she peered
over the railing. It was satisfactory.
Now for a good scream, a terrified
dash into the shelter of the apartment,
the neighbors' alarm; later, a woman's
handbag left behind, a kiss traced on
a *dead man's cheek; later still, the
identification of a man who was a
symbol, whose death under any set
of circumstances would reverberate
profoundly, but how much more so
thus. B

Twilight Zone 77

ym ^!k, the
d can go soft,
then you fall in.
Sometime!; it's not so
bad. Unless it’s the
wrong paif of you.

JiV

I walked on, until I came to where
there were some people. Just
standing arcund for the most
part. I Joined them. They weren't
very happy to see me, of course,
but there wasn't much they could do
about it. Some cf them were talking
sort of quietly; nobody ever talks
loudly, or does anything too quickly,
for fear of disturbing whatever it is
»■ that makes the changes.

3 Somebody said there hadn't been
f any activity around there in quite a
ij while. Some of them even looked sort
S of relaxed. I saw one fellow actually
£ lying down! He didn't look too bright,
* though, and everyone else was staying
g away from him, the way you do when
f it looks like someone is asking for it.
§ There were maybe twelve or four-
3 teen people in thrre, which is quite a

I IN IHE
GRAY PLACE

few to be in any one place. Three
were in. They weren't too bad. There
was one man with one leg in almost
to the knee, and another with both
legs in to just above the knee. There
vs as a woman who was the worst off,
on her side, with her legs and right
hip in, and her right arm almost up
to the shoulder, and some of her hair
so she couldn't move her head much.
That made it very uncomfortable, but
theie was nothing anybody could do.
If there'd been a knife or something
we might have been able to cut her
hair, but of course there was nothing
like that.

Everybody has his own ideas, of
course. One of the most popular is
that there are areas that stay stable for
long periods, and other areas* where
thei e re -changes all the time, or most
of the time. Most people, if fhey find
an area that seems to be stable, will
stay there. They think the more you
move around, the more trouble you're
likely to get into.

On the other hand, most people
seem to .believe that the more people
there are in an area, the riskier it gets
because that's more likely to attract at-
tention, and so while they'll stop in a
place that seems safer, they're never
happy to see any newcomers show up.
That makes it hard to get to know
people around here.

Everybody stood around. I stood
there too and looked as far as 1 could
see out' over the flat gray expanse to
the dim gray straight line of the
horizon, but 1 didn t see anyplace that
looked like a better place to be than
right there. So 1 stayed, 1 tried to talk
to a couple of people, but they were
very edgy, perhaps because of the
number there. The ones who were in
had been m a long tune and they were
pretty bitter. 1 was feeling the hunger
again. I'd been feeling thirsty a while
befoie, but now that had gone, for a
while. Not that I'd had anything to
drink, of course, but the hunger and
thirst aren't constant. Ihey come and
go, but you feel them most of the
time, particularly the thirst.

I stood there feeling the nothing.
After a while 1 started to feel edgy
myself 1 can't stay in one place too
long I start feeling fhis itch in my feet
and after a while I have to move on.

I just can't trust any one place too
much, and if I stand too long I start
to feel too tired. Sometimes I even
think about lying down ....

So I started walking, very slowly
and carefully the way you do, putting
each foot in front of me and testing
before I put my weight on it. Each
foot down on the smooth, flat gray
surface, as smooth as marble, as hard
as metal, not cold or warm or any
temperature at all. It's so smooth and
hard you think it ought to reflect, but
it doesn't, not at all, like the surface
of milk. Gray milk. You can't see
yourself; you can see your arms and
legs and belly — but never your own
face.

The woman
who was the
worst off was
on her side,
her legs and
right hip in,
and some of
her hair.

I looked around once in a while
fo see if I could see anyone. You'd
think you could see for miles, but you
can't somehow. There's nothing in the
way and you can see all the way to
the horizon, but the horizon must be
very close, because you come up on
people and you find you're within a
couple of hundred yards of them and
you haven't seen them before.

Everybody has his own theory. I
met a man once who wanted to be in a
group, thought it was safer. His idea
was that it was controlled by people's
minds; a lot of people wishing it would
stay stable is what made for the most
stability. He said the places where no-
body was were the wild places;
anything could happen. I don't know.
I guess it's possible, but it seems to me
that if we had any control it wouldn't
be as bad as it is. His theory didn't do
him much good, anyway, because he

couldn't persuade many people to stay
with him. People tend to avoid
anybody who seems strange or seems
to be taking chances. I might have
stayed with him, what the hell, but I
couldn't stay in any one place and he
didn't want to move. That was part of
his theory.

Some say that over the long run
there's the same amount of activity
everywhere, sc maybe the best place
to be isn't w.iere there hasn't been
much activity lately because the
chances are just that much greater that
there will be some. Most people,
though, seem to feel that there are
safe places and dangerous places, and
the problem is to try to tell them
apart. The frustrating thing is that
there may be some places that are
perfectly safe, and there's no activity
at all, ever. You get that thought
while you're walking along; maybe
this is the safest place there is, maybe
this is the only safe place, and 1
should just stay right here. But the
hell of it is, there's just no way to
know. If a pkice were perfectly safe,
then there would never be anybody in
and no way to mark it. So you keep
walking.

You put e.jch foot down carefully
and test before you put your weight
on it. There's no other way to tell.
You can't see any difference between
the solid and the liquid, not from far
away nor up dose, not from any an-
gle. The only way to tell the liquid is
there is by the feel, and then it's often
too late. But not always. You can get
away if you're quick enough. The
solid can go liquid on you, too, in an
instant, and that's when you go in,
but sometimes it's slow, gradual, and
you can break away. Or so I've been
told. I've never felt that myself, and
I've talked to some who don't believe
that either. It usually goes from liquid
back to solid instantly, too. But
maybe sometimes that, too, is slow
enough so you can break away.

So I walked and talked to any-
body I met, if they would talk to me.

Once in a while, a long while, in
the distance I'd see somebody go in.
Or maybe someone quickly turn, or
jump back and run away, and I'd know
they'd felt the liquid, or thought they
did. Once somebody yelled a warning.
You don't hear that very often, and it
isn't appreciated as much as you might
think. People don't like to hear any
loud noises or any disturbance. Leave
well enough alone is the idea. Don't
do anything to stir things up.

Of course^ there are those who
say that noth.ng you do makes any

80 Twilight Zone

difference anyway, so you might as
well not worry about it because the
whole thing is completely random.
You'd think those would be the most
relaxed people, but they aren't always.
Maybe they don't really believe it
themselves. Somehow you don't want
to believe that; somehow it makes it
worse to think that there's nothing
you can do to save yourself.

Fairly often I'd pass somebody who
was in, and once in a v/hile I'd stop
to talk. Some of them had been in a
while and some were just :n. The usual.
I met one girl, young and pretty —
she'd felt her legs go in and thrown her
hands forward by instinct — so now there
she was with her legs in to the knees
and her hands in to the wrists. Of
course she couldn't move very much and
was very uncomfortable, and she was
crying. 1 felt bad, but what could 1 do?
But she was a very pretty girl and she
looked so helpless. She disturbed me
very much, so I walked away from
there in a hurry, getting out before I
could get into trouble.

When you're in you have pretty
mixed feelings, to say the least. Then
there's not much you can do. You
don't have the option of deciding
whether to go or stay. All you can do
is to try to make yoursell as comfort-
able as possible. In a way it's a relief
not to have to make any decisions.
But when you're in you don't know
what to hope for. You want it to
loosen up because then you have a
chance of getting into a better position,
maybe getting out and getting free. On
the other hand, there's always the
chance you could be much worse off.

I was talking once to a fellow
who was in, but not too bad at all.
Just one foot at the ankle. He had
been there for some time, he told me,
but he was feeling all right. We talked
for a while and then it happened. He
was standing there and suddenly it
went liquid all around him. He'd been
joking and laughing, and lae hadn't felt
it coming on and he wasn't prepared.
He wasn't able to move quickly
enough to get out, and he slipped in
up to the neck, and it solidified
around him, just his head out. My
God, the shock and hcrror on his
face, and then he started screaming
and crying and cursing me; his voice
was horrible because his chest was
squeezed and he couldn't get enough
air into his lungs. I'd jumped back
when I saw it was going, liquid, and
at that I got right out of there. There
was hothing I could do and I felt
maybe it was my fault. He thought
so, anyway.

Nobody likes to think about the
worst that can happen, and I'm not
sure it happens because I've never seen
it, but . . . what if you went all the
way in? What if it went liquid and
you went down and it was liquid over
a wide area and there was nothing to
grab to pull yourself out and nothing
to stop you, and you went under and
the surface closed over you and
hardened? There'd be no trace. I think
about that sometimes when I'm walk-
ing along on the flat, blank, gray sur-
face, feeling my way. 1 might be walk-
ing over someone right now, and I'd
never know it.

Very few people want to talk
about that. Some say it would never

happen because you'd float, at least a
part of you would. That's the sort of
thing you'd like to believe.

I heard a story once. Somebody
was walking along and saw a man
come out who had been in completely.
Off to one side the surface broke and
someone appeared where there had
been no one before. The man had
struggled up and out, got to a solid
place and got onto his feet, staggered
for a bit and then walked away. But
you don't know whether you believe
that, and you don't know whether you
want to believe it. It means you can
go all the way in, but it also means
you can get out again. But after how
long?

Or maybe that was a newcomer,
just getting here. Maybe that's how
you get here, or one of the ways.
Who's to say about that, either?

I passed a man once, I don't tell

people about it, and 1 don't like to
think about it. He was in, just a little,
but it was his hands and face that
were in, so he couldn't breathe. God!
He was thrashing around, it must
have been agony. But he didn't die, of
course. You don't die here. It's like the
hunger and thirst you feel. There's
nothing to eat or drink, but you don't
starve, you don't get dehydrated, you
just feel the thirst and hunger. You
can breathe; there's air. That's one of
the few things that's here; that and the
people and the flat, gray surface and
the flat, gray sky.

There's sex, too. Or rather, there's
the need for it, you feel that, too. But
there's not much to be done about that,
either. There are women, of course,
about as many women as men, and
some of them are very nice. As a mat-
ter of fact most of them are. But how
would you dare? Almost nobody will
come within five or six feet of someone
else. It's too much of a chance to take.
Suppose you were lying on that gray
surface with another body on top of
you and the surface went liquid under
you? You'd have no chance, you'd be
driven under for sure. Nobody is go-
ing to take a chance like that.

And also it's the sort of. thing that
nobody would want to have anyone
else doing. Who knows what effect it
might have? If nobody will talk in a
loud voice, you can be damned sure
nobody i^ going to be willing to have
sex.

1 wonder sometimes what everyone
would do if someone really started to
do something the rest didn't want him
to do. I don't know quite what that
would be; there aren't too many ways
to do the wrong thing here. There
aren't too many options. But I wonder
what would happen. I think that every-
one else would simply get out of there
as fast as possible. That's what hap-
pens now whenever someone is acting
strangely.

I wonder, too, why it is that most
of the women here look young and at-
tractive, and the men, too, for that
matter. I never see a child or anyone
old, or anyone who looks crippled or
sick. The most obvious answer, of
course, is the one you don't like to
think of; that they all went under,
that they weren't quick enough or
strong enough to struggle out of the
way when they felt the softening under
them.

I was walking along, not moving
too fast, and I saw something very
strange, something I'd never seen the
like of before. There was a man in up
(continued on page 101)

.1
- ‘i

Twilight Zone 81

^^^^^^[^troversial teleploy

R"** *"^'‘^®4«rwho hated rt.

,nd the haters w

From its inception, The Twilight
Zone was a favored target of the
angry-letter writers of America. If Rod
Serling presented a characterization
of the archangel Gabriel (as he did
in 1960 in "A Passage for Trum-
pet”), he’d get a letter from a viewer
in Michigan accusing Twilight Zone
of blasphemy. If he depicted a drunk-
en department store Santa (“Night of
the Meek,” also 1960), he’d hear
from angered parents who wanted
their impressionable youngsters to
continue to believe in St. Nick’s pur-
ity. An offhand comment by an un-
pleasant character in 1961 ’s “Static”
(script by Charles Beaumont) that
“Tommy Dorsey’s dead” was pin-
pointed as “bad taste” by a^viewer
who was a friend of Dorsey’s widow.
And, of course, Serling was “damned
if he did, damned if he didn’t”; His
depiction of Khruschev as the world’s
most notorious liar in “The Whole
Truth” (1961) incurred the wrath of a
California lady who accused Serling
of trying to upset the “peaceful co-
existence” applecart, while the anti-
war stance of 1963’s “The Thirty-
Fathom Grave” brought an inflamma-
tory letter from another corner of
California, this time from a husband
and wife who found Serling’s script
antimilitary (hardly the case, since
the program was filmed on a genuine
naval vessel with full U.S. Navy co-
operation), anti-American, and very
likely pro-Red.

The angry mail sent to Twilight
Zone was, in general, a mere trickle
compared to the favorable missives
received by the program’s staff. This,
however, was not the case following
the January 24, 1963 telecast of Ser-
ling’s hour-long TZ play, “He’s Alive!”

“He’s Alive!” was the story of an
American fascist (Dennis Hopper),
whose group gets nowhere unti! he
starts getting advice from a mysteri-
ous, shadowy figure. This mystery
man suggests various ways that the
fascist group can win pubiic approval:
by making themselves the underdog,
creating a martyr, eliminating those
who stand in the way. At the climax,
the shadowy stranger is, of course,
revealed to be Adolph Hitler (played,
with not-terribly-convincing facial

ALL THE

by HAL ERICKSON

makeup, by Curt Conway). Serling’s
point was that Hitler will live as long
as good men do nothing to fight his
poisonous message.

While “He’s Alive!” is far from
subtie, and whiie it fa!!s back on
some rather contrived p!ot devices
(such as the character of an eideriy
Jew who is, beiieve it or not, the
young fascist’s on!y rea! friend), the
play is a competent capsule depic-
tion of Hitler’s own rise to power.

To Rod Serling, “He’s Alive!”
was far more than just another sau-
sage from the Twilight Zone grinder.

He felt that thci play was the best he
had written for the 1962-63 series
and had hopes for its development
beyond the hour-long format. Dis-
tressed that producer Herbert Hirsch-
mann had edited the film to conform
to time-restrictions, eliminating a
nightmarish sequence in which Den-
nis Hopper, suddenly terrified at the
prospect of meeting Hitler face-to-
face, runs through the deserted city
streets only to be confronted by
swastikas, Nazi propaganda posters,
and copies of Mein Kampf on every
street corner, !5erling suggested that

82 Twilight Zone

two versions of “He’s Alive” be pre-
pared in the editing room. One, the
shorter of the two, would be telecast;
the other would be expanded into a
theatrical feature film. (Serling had
been developing a Twilight Zone mo-
tion picture since 1960, only to be
thwarted by uninterested or skeptical
producers at every turn.) To this end,
Serling started writing additional
scenes, expanding the characters of
Dennis Hopper’s three followers (one
of whom was played by Paul Mazur-
sky, the future director of such films
as Bob and Caroi and Ted and Mice
and Moscow on the Hudson) and
adding, as a nominal “sympathetic”
protagonist, the character of a dedi-
cated FBI man who is investigating
Hopper’s fascist movement. Because
Twiiight Zone’s already conservative
budget had been stretched to the
breaking point, Hirschmann turned
down Serling’s suggestions.

Perhaps Serling felt that a fea-
ture film would allow him certain
freedoms denied him by television.
He’d already been forced not to men-
tion Hopper’s neo-Nazi organization
by name and had had to replace the
swastika that the group should have
used as its logo with a neutral
clenched-fist design. Even the Hop-
per character name was changed to
avoid lawsuits. Originally, he’d been
“Peter Collier,” but when it was
discovered that there were a number
of Colliers involved in real-life fascist
activities, the character was re-
christened “Peter Vollmer.” Serling
had been under attack of late by
critics who felt that the writer had
sold out to commercialism, that the
“angry young man” of television’s
golden age had become a toothless
elder statesman, incapable of invok-
ing the dramatic clout an<J controver-
sy that had attended Serling’s work
of the 1950s: perhaps the writer felt
that a no-punches-pulied Twiiight Zone
film attacking modern extremism
would prove that he hadn’t lost his
sense of justice.

It’s often possible for today’s
television historians to pick on Ser-
ling. “So he was against fascism,”
they say. “So what? Who isn’t?”

Well, you’d be surprised.

To be sure, much of the mail
received by Twiiight Zone's staff fol-
lowing the premiere of “He’s Alive”
was laudatory. “While there was
much of the piece that I was disap-
pointed in, I thought its central mes-
sage did come through,” wrote a

Newark, N.J., viewer. “A great public
service,” noted a Portsmouth, Va.
minister.

Some viewers’ attitudes were
rather unclear. “It was horrible,”
complained a man in a letter to Wal-
ter E. Sickner, the general manager
of Orlando, Florida’s CBS affiliate,
WDBO-TV. “The kind of ’hatred pro-
paganda’ promoted by a vengeful mi-
nority, of which we have seen so
much recently.”

Was the viewer offended by the
fictional Nazis, or was it Serling’s
condemnation of those Nazis that
was offensive? Sickner’s reply to this
angry man was masterful. Taking his
cue from the writer’s statement that
he’d only watched the first fifteen
minutes of “He’s Alive,” Sickner
sent the man a complete script of
the play, suggesting that he might
form a more rounded opinion by
reading the entire script. Serling, ap-
prised of the station manager’s diplo-
macy, praised Sickner in a letter:
“Not only are you one helluva judge
of human nature — but you must be
Number One in the public relations
field in Florida at least!”

On the other hand, the angry-
letter writers made their opinions all
too clear. Within a week after the
telecast, Serling and his staff re-
ceived four thousand letters for
which the designation “hate mail”
was much too mild. Communications
were received from the followers of
the prominent anti-Semite Gerald
L. K. Smith, from the disciples of
faith-healer/politicizer Billy Jo Hargis,
from such august concerns as “The
White Citizen’s Councils” and “Chris-
tian Anti-Communism Schools.” Ser-
ling and company were addressed as
“commie bastards” by some, while
other literary wits characterized the
Twiiight Zone people as “kike lovers”
and “nigger lovers.” An organization
called “Geo Politics” offered the
novel suggestion that “Jews should
be put in gas ovens and niggers
shipped back to Africa.”

Most of these knuckle-dragging
intellectuals were upset that their
race hatred was being presented in
an unfavorable light. A number of
them, however, were incensed be-
cause of one brief scene in Act Two
of “He’s Alive” — the sequence in
which Peter Vollmer turns his invec-
tive away from his usual minority-
group targets and starts insisting that
his group of neo-Nazis is under at-
tack from the Communists, in this

Oppos/te page: Curt Conway feigning
the Ftihrer who refuses to die.

Above: The insignia Serling was
forced to use In place of Hitler’s
more famous symbol, thanks to
networks qualms.

way alligsiing himself with the anti-
communist sentiments of those lis-
tening to him. Since Vollmer is a
pocket edition of Hitler, this attack on
Communism was historically accu-
rate (the Nazis and Communists had
been at each other’s throats since
Germany’s inflation-ridden 1920’s):
Vollmer’s cloaking himself in anti-
communism was also meant to be
an illustration of Samuel Johnson’s
remark that “Patriotism is the last
refuge of the scoundrel.”

Serling’s attackers missed this
point entirely: To them, Vollmer’s
phony anti-Communism was proof
positive of Serling’s “actual”
pro-Communism.

After wading through the reams
of hate-mail, Serling was in no mood
for an attack from the press. While
The Indianapolis Star was not and is
not pro-Nazi or anti-Semitic, in 1963
it was a staunchly conservative, anti-
communist publication. In its Janu-
ary 31 edition of that year, the Star
let Serling and “He’s Alive” have it:

Nobody can disagree with
whatever scorn one wants to
heap on Adolph Hitler . . . Yet

Twilight Zone 83

we are a little puzzled as to the ^ of the German Empire, maybe that we have other enemies no

relevance of this production to we can alert the public to the less real, no less constant and

contemporary events. Indeed, menace of “the Hun.” no less damaging to the fabric

this attempt to establish rele- of a democracy. It’s when we

vance struck us as more than For Rod Serling, this sarcastic hear denials that these people

a little cockeyed. broadside was the last straw. He had exist and that their poison is be-

For example, the young Nazi seen far too many reactionary groups ing disseminated and that any

. . talked a great deal about pop up in response to the Civil Rights comment to this effect is

anti-Communism. He also had a movement of the early 1960s and had irrelevant — I wonder if "The

lot to say about “freedom.” That watched too many people like the Twilight Zone” isn’t something

combination of sentiments, as it American Nazi Party’s George Lincoln more than a television idea,

happens, has very little to do Rockwell and the KKK’s Robert Shel-

with authentic Nazism ... ton become “media celebrities” to And from the Twilight Zone of

But the combination of anti- swallow the thesis that modern fasc- “last withering blasts” came, after all

Communism and freedom does ism was nothing to worry about. Ser- the controversy had subsided, one

fit one recognizable political ling wrote a long, impassioned, reply last criticism of “He’s Alive.” At the

grouping: Modern American to the Star’s editorial, which the news- end of the film, Serling, in his

spoken epilogue, wondered where
the ghost of Hitler would next sur-
face. Would it be in Syracuse, per-
haps, or maybe Vincennes, Indiana?
Serling chose “Syracuse” as a pos-
sible target because he’d been born
in Syracuse. Vincennes was chosen
at random, from one of the many
small towns Serling had visited dur-
^ paper, to its credit, printed virtually in ing his tenure as a staff writer on a

toto in its February 26 edition. Cincinnati, Ohio, station. There was

purely political aspects, sound- After assuring the editorialist that no further significance to the indu-
ed a great deal more like Barry he did not intend to lump Mr.Gold- sion of the Indiana town than that—

Goldwater, a man of Jewish water and the responsible conser- and yet, a vievrer in Vincennes wrote

lineage, than it did like Hitler. vatives of America with the Nazis, to say that he was upset that Serling

The impression left by the pro- Serling made his point: would designate the city as a poten-

gram was that people who warn tial breeding ground for Nazis. The

against Communism and people If your editorialist could have viewer had no political ax to grind,

who talk about getting back our read a fraction of the mail re- His letter asked, in effect, “Why pick

freedom are probably secret ceived after our production of on us?”

Nazis. “He’s Alive,” I wonder if he From an offended viewer in a

would persist in his thesis that small midwestern town, through a

After itemizing the recent en- communism is a singular enemy myriad of “nut” groups, and on to a

croachments of Soviet Communism in and combating it should be our major metropolitan newspaper. Rod

Vietnam and Africa, as well as recall- comparably singular preoccupa- Serling had aroused controversy the

ing the several other recent anti-fascist tion ... In a sense, we heard like of which hadn’t been seen since

dramas (among them a 1962 Defend- from the whole roster of the far his live-television days. This from a

ers episode featuring Dennis Hopper right and it’s quite a batting writer who’d been consigned to the

as yet another latter-day Nazi), the order! Their stock-in-trade — in- has-been heap by a few elitist televi-

editorial concluded: deed, their raison d'etre — is anti- sion critics; this from a television

Communism . . . like your edit- series that was forever threatened

For our part, we think the bril- orialist, they seem to feel that with cancellation because its network

liant news analysts who perceive racism, bigotry and hatred should felt that it didn’t have a significant

the menace of Nazism in a be of little concern to us in view number of viewers,

world strangled by Communism of the fact that communists are Although “He’s Alive” seems to

have missed the mark. After all, trying to take over our govern- the modern viewer to pull its pun-

the Second World War has ment, invade our schools and ches, some of its controversial as-

been over a mere 18 years. subvert our institutions. pects still play quite well. And when

Why concentrate on a menace While “association” — how- the disturbing recent upsurge of “pro-
as recently passed as that? ever gratuitous and accidental— American” groups arming themselves

What this country really is, to the far right, practically a against any and all minorities is taken

needs, in the year 1963, is to guarantee of guilt — I submit to into account, it can be said that we

be educated concerning the a more moderate view and could use a few more dramas like

dangers of World War One. If choose to believe that your Twiiight Zone’s “He’s Alive” today,

enough programs are conducted editorial writer is well motivated Perhaps with the relative editorial

on this subject, and enough and quite rightfully dislikes com- and dramatic freedom now allowed

commentary floated suggesting munism and is concerned with in television the play would attain the

that anti-Communists are agents subversion. But I submit to him full power that Serling intended. ■

84 Twilight Zone

He's

Alive

Part I of II

by ROD SERLING

The original television
script first aired on CBS-
TV January 24, 1963.

CAST

Peter Vollmer

Dennis Hopper

Ernst Ganz

Ludwig Donath

Adolph Hitler

Curt Conway

Frank

Paul Mazursky

Nick

Howard Caine

Stanley

Barnaby Hale

Heckler

Elernard Fein

Gibbons

Jay Adler

Proprietor

Wolf Brazen

FADE IN:

1. STANDARD OPENING

DISSOLVE TO:

2. EXTERIOR STREET CORNER
CITY NIGHT

As seen from high up on a corner
building.

3. EXTREMELY TIGHT CLOSE
SHOT THERMOMETER

On the side of the building with the
temperature weii into the nineties. Pan
down until we’re shooting past the faces
of a small crowd of people numbering
perhaps thirty or fqrty. They stand and
listen to a shrill, discordant soap-box
orator who at this moment is off camera.
The camera continues its pan past these
faces that range in the spectrum of emo-
tions from an apathetic boiled-out fatigue
to a hot, itchy irritation. As the pan con-
tinues, we hear bits and pieces of the
speaker’s voice; high-pitched tail-ends of
his harangue with words iike “communist
conspiracy,” “internationai bankers,” and
the usuai meat-and-potato slogans of the
minor demagogue. The pan continues un-
til it’s shooting toward the speaker’s
makeshift platform. In front stand three
men (Nick, Stanley, and Frank). Nick is
fat, gross — piggish eyes in a fleshy, jowly
face. Stanley is tall, thin, bony-faced, with
the look almost of an aesthete. Frank is
a big man — a weight-lifter with massive
arms. And while none of the three are im-
pressive or menacing or even remotely
prepossessing, it is what they wear that
conjures up memories of another time

and lends a sobriety to the ineffectual
rantings that go on above them. They
have their arms folded in front of them
covering Sam Brown beits, shoulder
straps, epaulets, semi-military slate-grey
uniforms with bands on their right arms.
The bands carry the insignia of the or-
ganization: a hand holding a torch. To
their left, stuck in the ground, is a fiag
bearing the same insignia. To their right
is an American flag. The camera shoots
past these three men up toward the
speaker. This is Peter Voiimer, a man in
his twenties — feet astride the box, width
of the hips apart, thumbs hooked over his
wide Sam Brown beit when his hands are
not being used to gesture. His voice is
untrained, his manner instinctive, his ap-
proach that of an amateur who is both
unfamiliar with his audience or with the
avenues he couid use to command it. His
voice is shrill and unpleasant— his
gestures theatricai.

VOLLMER

The economics of the worid — now,
then, and forever, have always found
an insidious breed of internationai
banker! These are the worshippers of
currency whose shrine is gold; whose
religion is monetary gain; whose ioyal
ites— first, foremost, and primariiy— are
with money and oniy money. These
men are traitors. Seditious traitors.
And they are here. They are in Wash-
ington. They have long ago captured
the prerogatives of government —

He stops and stares down at the
audience.

Twilight Zone 85

4. REVERSE ANGLE LOOKING
TOWARD THE CROWD

Who stare back at him in absolute and
utter silence. Pan shot past the faces o1
the audience again. One man chews pop-
corn: another smokes a wet soggy cigar;
a woman yawns; a couple of teenagers
nuzzle one another oblivious to the voice
and the personage in front of them; a
middle aged woman fans herself while
the man alongside wipes a perspiring
face.

5. A SHOT OVER THEIR HEADS
OF AN ICE CREAM WAGON

As it moves slowly down the street toward
the assemblage. It has a tinny little bell
that tinkles out a nursery rhyme song.
Several people in the crowd turn toward
the sound. A small child on the fringe
plucks restively at a parental coat and we
hear an unintelligible demand for ice
cream.

6. CLOSE SHOT VOLLMER

As he reacts to the interruptions, nervous-
ly preoccupied with them. His voice auto-
matically goes up an octave as if trying
to drown out the intrusion. His thumbs
hook over his Sam Brown belt as he
strikes the. pose.

VOLLMER

History has left us a definitive chart
of cause and effect in the ultimate
destruction of a nation. This chart is
eminently readable, my friends, if one
simply will peruse it. Study it. Analyze
the danger signals.

(again a theatrical gesture)
Examine the phenomenon of foreign
controls. Examine it and you’ll note,
with absolute clarity, the lines that
lead to Palestine. To Africa. To the
Vatican—

7. ANGLE SHOT SHOOTING
TOWARD THE CROWD

As a few people move toward the ice
cream wagon, and now there are
sporadic murmurings in the crowd.

8. ANOTHER ANGLE
OF VOLLMER

His lips twitch and his control starts to
slip away. His voice now is a shrill discor-
dant wail that borders on petulance and
at the same time almost a pleading
whine.

VOLLMER

Look ... I'm not asking for anything
but your attention. I’m not asking for
anything but an awareness on your
part of a conspiracy ... an insidious,
enveloping conspiracy. A conspiracy
personified by yellow men. Black men.
Foreigners who come over here to first
infiltrate our economy . . . then our
social structure . . . then our entire
way of life. And there will come a
morning . . . there will come a morn-
ing when you’ll find these men taking
over your homes and your daughters.
Sitting on your doorstep—

9. LONG SHOT THE CROWD his shoulder as if seeking out an escape
As a big ruddy man leaning against a route already,
hydrant, takes a cigar out of his mouth
and shouts.

MAN (IN THE CROWD)

(shouting)

If anybody’s siftin’ on your doorstep,
buddy — he’ll be wearin’ a white coat.

Why don't you go with him quietly?

There is sporadic laughter at this.

13. CLOSE SHOT VOLLMER

His face is white and sweaty, his eyes
fierce, his voice' uncontrolled.

VOLLMER

(screeching)

Maybe you’re a commie! Maybe that’s
why what I say doesn’t sit so good on
you!

10. CLOSE SHOT VOLLMER

His face is a portrait of gall — a sour,
festering frustration. He’s lost his au-
dience and he knows it. He’s about to
retort when once again the voice booms
out from the crowd.

MAN (IN THE CROWD)

Hey, nutsy — take me to your leader.
There is a spontaneous roll of laughter
from the crowd. Laughter that feeds on
laughter. There has been something

14. FULL SHOT THE CROWD
FAVORING THE HECKLER

As he steps forward

HECKLER

Do somethin’ about it, punk! Go
ahead . . you’re such a big tough
number one tiger — do somethin’ about

VOLLMER

(screeching— beyond any control,

wiggling a shaking finger at him)

I’m gonna tell you something. I’m gon-
na tell you something right now! When
this country v/akes up and they start
figuring out how Izzy sold them out and
Rastus sold them out and Pancho sold
them out ... and they make a list of
those who get paid back — you’ll be on
top, buddy! You hear me? You’ll be on
the —

vaguely disquieting about the intense
young man and this is a release. The
laughter builds and then reaches a peak.

11. CLOSER ANGLE VOLLMER

Now the petulance gives way to
pure anger and frustration.

VOLLMER

You think it’s funny, don’t you? You
think it’s funny that your country can
be sold out ... your birthright . . .
your flag . . your rights ... all sold
out ...

VOICE (FROM THE CROWD)

Hey, kookie — lend me your comb!
Again a roar of laughter.

15. CLOSE SHOT VOLLMER

A rotten tomato, flung from the crowd,
splatters against his chest. When he
looks down another hits him in the face.

16. ANGLE SHOT OVER HIS

SHOULDER THE CROWD

As they roar with laughter.

12. MEDIUM CLOSE SHOT
THE THREE “ATTENDANTS”

Who look around, disquieted and con-
cerned. The temper of the crowd is
changing now. There is an edge to the
laughter and they recognize it. They
move closer together to form a more solid
phalanx in front of Vollmer— though Nick,
the fatter of the three, is obviously reluc-
tant and casts some hopeful looks over

17. REVERSE ANGLE

LOOKING TOWARD VOLLMER

As now he’s one quivering rage. He
vaults over the platform, pushing his way
through the crowd toward the heckler.
The crowd parts; for him and the heckler
awaits the lung(3, steps aside, trips him.

86 Twilight Zone

Vollmer lands in a lump on the ground,
but before he can get up the' heckler has
hauled back and planted a well directed
shoe against Vollmer’s side. Vollmer
sprawls on his back.

18. ANGLE SHOT
FRANK AND STANLEY

Both of whom start to push their way to
his rescue. Stanley is pulled down from
behind and disappears behind a crowd.
Frnak whirls around in time to get a fist
directly in his face — then he, too, disap-
pears behind a group of struggling,
fighting people. Whip pan over to a:

19. SHOT OF VOLLMER

On his hands and knees, dazed and
bleeding. The heckler pulls him halfway
up, gives him a knee under the chin, then
a left and right — vicious open-palmed
swings that almost tear his head off and
ultimately fling him backward to land on
his back only semi-conscious.

20. ANGLE SHOT LOOKING UP
AT THE HECKLER

Standing over him.

HECKLER

What’s the matter, tiger? No more
speeches left now? No more big talk?
(he bends down and pulls
Vollmer half up off the ground
by his shirt fronr)

When you get home, punk— you take
a look at yourself in a mirror. You
know what you’ll see? A scrawny little
kook with a big mouth. A big hater so
long as you got a few other punks to
stand in front of you.

He lets him loose and Vollmer again col-
lapses on the ground.

21. ANOTHER ANGLE
THE HECKLER

The anger subsides and with it a realiza-
tion of what he’s done. He looks around
a little warily and then disappears into the
crowd. There is the sound of a police
siren in the distance approaching.

22-25. DIFFERENT SHOTS
OF THE CROWD

As they disperse.

26. ANOTHER ANGLE
A POLICE CAR

As it pulls to a stop. Two policemen get
out and walk toward the corner.

27. ANGLE SHOT LOOKING
DOWN THE STREET

AT NICK

As he runs away.

ANGLE SHOT

28. FRANK AND STANLEY

The former leaning against a building, the
other sitting with his head in his hands
on the, ground, then a pan over to a:

29. SHOT OF VOLLMER

Who slowly gets to his feet, his face torn,

his uniform ripped to pieces.

30. GROUP SHOT

THE TWO POLICEMEN

As they approach Vollmer.

POLICEMAN ONE
Some problems, boys, huh?

31. CLOSE SHOT VOLLMER

As he wipes the blood away with the
back of his hand.

VOLLMER

Communists. The communists did this.
The two policemen exchange a look.
POLICEMAN ONE
Which ones. Jack?

VOLLMER

They’re all communists. All of them.
POLICEMAN ONE

How about some names? If you want
to press charges— we’ll need some
names.

32. ANOTHER ANGLE
STANLEY AND FARNK

Who approach Vollmer and then enter
the scene with him. Vollmer looks briefly
at the other two then toward the
policemen.

VOLLMER

Forget it. We can handle it ourselves.

POLICEMAN ONE
You need medical attention?

VOLLMER
(shakes his head)

We don’t need anything.

POLICEMAN ONE
(looks at the other policeman
—shrugs)

Okay.

They stand there and watch Vollmer with
his two cronies as they slowly start to
walk away. Policeman Two looks off
toward the makeshift platform and the
flag whose staff has been broken and lies
like a rag in the gutter. He walks over to
it, lifts it up, turns toward Vollmer and
calls out.

POLICEMAN TWO
Hey, Jack!

33. LONG SHOT VOLLMER
AND THE OTHER TWO

As they turn toward the policeman.
POLICEMAN TWO
You forgot your . . . your “flag.”

He lets it loose from his fingers to drop
back into the gutter. Frank hurries over,
picks it up, almost reverently brushes it
off, very carefully rolls it up, then turns
toward the policeman.

FRANK

(very softly and intensely)

There’ll came a day . . . when guys
like you will crawl on your belly just
to salute this. There’ll come a day.

34. CLOSE SHOT
POLICEMAN TWO

Who stares down at the flag, then up into
Frank’s face.

POLICEMAN TWO

Let me know the date. Jack. That

morning I’ll cut my wrists!

Frank is about to retort then clamps his
mouth shut, walks back over to Vollmer
and Stanley who await him and the three
men start slowly down the street.

DISSOLVE TO:

35. EXTERIOR ALLEY
LONG SHOT FROM
THE STREET NIGHT

Looking down into the narrow cul de sac
we see fat Nick standing in the shadows,
back pressed against the wall. He hears
footsteps approaching and flattens
himself even harder against the wall, then
very cautiously peers out into the light
when he hears some mumbled voices
and recognizes them. He then steps out
into the light completely.

36. REVERSE ANGLE
LOOKING TOWARD STANLEY,
FRANK, AND VOLLMER

Who walk into the alley. Nick exhales in
relief, walks toward them.

37. GROUP SHOT
THE FOUR MEN

NICK

(obsequious, his voice gushing,

the words tripping over
themselves in his anxiety)

Hey, Pete . . . Pete ... I’m glad
you’re okay!

Vollmer looks at him very briefly, walks
past him over to the wall where he very
slowly sits down, his back against it. Nick
follows him over there.

NICK

There mifsta been eight, ten guys on
top of me. It was all I could to do get
away —

FRANK

(his voice cutting and incisive)

That took guts, Nick. None of us was
that brave. We stood there and we
took it.

NICK

(whirls around at him, his voice
half petulant — half defensive)

I would’a stayed. I would’a stayed to
help Pete — but there was so many —
FRANK

(interrupting him)

Don’t tell me, Nick. Tell Pete.

NICK

(whirls around again toward)

You get a mean crowd, Pete, when
there’s a hot night you always get a
mean crowd.

(he looks back toward Stanley
and Frank)

I told you guys that. You get a hot
night— and then a coupla bindle-stiffs
in the crowd— and they swing it all the
wrong way.

(now back to Vollmer)
Remember when I said that, Pete?
Remember when I was tellin’ you how
everytime there’s a hot night—

38. CLOSE SHOT VOLLMER

His head jerks up.

- 't

Twilight Zone 87

5 .

VOLLMER

(sharply)

All right, Nick! It’s done!

39. CLOSE SHOT NICK

Forcing a smile, his lips quivering.
NICK

Sure, Pete. Sure.

40. GROUP SHOT
THE FOUR MEN
FAVORING VOLLMER

Sitting on the ground. He slowly reaches
up, touches the filth on his face, looks
down at it on his fingertips.

VOLLMER
(very softly)

Why?

(he looks up at the three men
who stare down at them, his
voice louder)

Why?

STANLEY

It’s like Nick says, Pete — it just takes
one or two bums with big mouths —
He then clamps his mouth shut unable to
think of anything else.

VOLLMER

I tried hard tonight. I tried so hard.

(he looks from face to fadfe)

I couldn’t get through. I couldn’t get
through to any of them. I ... I knew
what to tell them. I knew what had to
be said.

(he shakes his head back and
forth)

But I just couldn’t ... I couldn’t get
get it out. I couldn’t think of the
words.

(he looks down at his torn un-
iform, feels of the bruise on his
face, looks back up toward the
three men)

Someday they’ll have to listen. Some-
day . . . someday . . . they’ll cheer.

41. CLOSE SHOT FRANK

The look on his face is part awe, part
reverence, his voice shakes with emotion.
FRANK

Someday they will, Pete. Just as sure
as the sun come up in the morning —
they will!

42. ANOTHER ANGLE
THE THREE MEN

As they stare down at Vollmer. They wait
for a long silent moment, then Frank
nudges Stanley, givs him a look, and the
three men turn slowly to walk away leav-
ing Vollmer sitting there, his back against
the wall.

SERLING’S VOICE
Portrait of a bush league Fuehrer
named Peter Vollmer. A sparse little
man who feeds off his self-delusions
and finds himself perpetually hungry
for want of greatness in his diet.

DISSOLVE TO:

43. SERLING IN A LIMBO SET

SERLING

And like some goose-stepping prede-

cessors, he searches for something to
explain his hunger and to rationalize
why a world passes him by without
saluting. The something he looks for
and finds is in a sewer. In his own
twisted and distorted lexicon, he calls
it faith— strength— truth.

(a pause)

But in just a moment, Peter Vollmer
will ply his trade on another kind of
corner — a strange intersection in a
shadowland called . . . The Twilight
Zone.

FADE TO BLACK:
OPENING BILLBOARD
FIRST COMMERCIAL

ACT ONE

FADE ON:

44. INTERIOR BROWNSTONE
APARTMENT HOUSE
HALLWAY NIGHT

A shabby front hall illuminated by a
single yellow bulb hanging from the ceil-
ing. The front door opens. Vollmer enters.
He pauses by the first floor bannister, his
face bioody — hair rumpled, shirt torn — the
blood a dry blotch on his face. He looks
up toward the top of the stairs. A child
comes in the front door, starts toward his
own first floor apartment, then stops and
stares at Vollmer, who turns away, cover-
ing up the bruise on the side of his face,
and waits until the child’s footsteps disap-
pear; then he looks up again toward the
top of the stairs and starts up them.

45. MOVING SHOT WITH HIM

As he goes up, taking off the various
paraphernalia and uniform accoutrements
as he walks — first the arm band then the
tiny tie pin with the insignia of the
organization (a hand holding a torch), and
then the tie. Halfway up, he’s removed
the Sam Brown belt and then the
shoulder strap. When he reaches the sec-
ond floor landing, he is unbuttoning his
torn shirt. He pauses again for a moment,
clutches at the bannister for support, then
shoves the arm band, belt, et cetera, into
the shirt as if it were like a bag, covers
them up, shoves the bundle under his
arm, then continues an unsteady walk
over to an apartment door. He pauses in
front of it, leans against the door jamb
and closes his eyes, takes a deep breath,
knocks on the door. There are footsteps
approaching from the other side and the
door opens and we’re looking over Voll-
mer’s shoulder toward Ernst Ganz, a man
in his indeterminate fifties — obviously
older looking than he is— the face
seamed and lined, the eyes deep, the
hair prematurely white — a collection of
years telescoped there suggesting more
than a man’s rightful share of pain and
misery. But the face is a strong one and
rather a gentle one with its wisdom and
its understanding. He looks very briefly at
Vollmer, apparently not at all surprised at
what he sees. He gives almost a half
nod, steps aside, motions Vollmer into his
apartment. Vollmer follows him in. Ganz

closes the door behind him.

CUT TO:

46. INTERIOR

GANZ’S APARTMENT

A small room, shabby like the rest of the
building but somehow comfortable and
not unpleasant. There is a small pullman
kitchen adjoining the living room. Ganz
motions to Vollmer to sit down, then he
walks into the pullman kitchen, takes out
a wash cloth, pours water on it and car-
ries it back over to Vollmer, hands it to
him.

GANZ

(not ungently)

Wash your face, Peter.

Voilmer takes the wash cloth and dabs in-
effectually at his face. Ganz takes the
wash cloth from him and finishes the
washing, very carefully wiping away the
dried blood, then peering at the bruise.

GANZ

(with a half smile)

It’s not a mortal wound, Peter. I think
you shall survive. When you get home
put some iodine on it.

Vollmer stares down at his hands and
doesn’t say anything.

GANZ

Do you want a cup of coffee?
VOLLMER

(shakes his head, then looks up

quickly)

A drink. Could I have a drink, Ernst?

GANZ

i have wine. You want wine?

Voilmer nods. Ganz retraces his steps
over to the kitchen, throws the wash cloth
in the sink, removes a bottle of wine from
the cupboard, pours a smaii glass and
carries it back over to Vollmer who grabs
it and then gulps it down.

GANZ
(\'ery softly)

One sips wine, Peter. It’s not
medicine.

VOLLMER

I’ll . . . I’ll keep it in mind ... for the
next time.

GANZ

For the next lime.

(he takes out a pipe and lights
it, then sits down in a chair
close to Vollmer.)

How many “next times” do you sup-
pose a human being has in the
scheme of things?

VOLLMER

Don’t lecture me, Ernst. I’m tired. I’m
sick. I’ve got . . I’ve got a bomb in-
side me that’s ready to go off. So
please . . . don’t lecture me.

GANZ

(makes a gesture, smiles—
points to the bruise on
Vollmer’s face)

Who gave you your badge?

VOLLMER

(staring down at his lap)

Some . . . some drunk.

He looks up at Ganz almost as if expect-
ing some kind ()f sympathy. Ganz stares
at him unsmiling.

88 Twilight Zone

VOLLMER

Can I . . . can I stay hens tonight? I
don’t dare go back home.

GANZ

(points to the couch)

It remains there for you ... as usuai.

VOLLMER

Yes. But does it make any difference
if we don’t ... if we don’t think alike
about certain things? We’re friends,
aren’t we? We’re good friends. You’ve
known me since I was a kid.

47. CLOSE SHOT VOLLMER

Who studies the other mar.

VOLLMER

You’re a good friend, Ernst. You’re a
reai good friend —

48. REVERSE ANGLE
LOOKING TOWARCI GANZ

Who leans forward and witfi a deceiving
swiftness pulis open Vollmei’s bundle on
his lap.

53. CLOSE PROFILE SHOT
GANZ

He lights his pipe very slowly and
deliberately but keeps his back to
Vollmer.

GANZ

When you were a little kid, Peter, and
I used to find you crying at my door
late at night . . .

(he turns toward him)

I could pity you then.

49. CLOSE SHOT THE: BUNDLE 54. TWO SHOT THE TWO MEN

And the arm band in Ganz's hand. The Vollmer

camera pulls back for a: And . . . now?

GANZ

What do you think?

(a pause)

Now you peddle hate on street cor-
ners as if it were popcorn.

VOLLMER

It isn’t hate, Ernst. It’s . . . it’s simply
a point of view. It’s a philosophy.

55. CLOSE SHOT GANZ

As he studies the younger man.

GANZ
(very softly)

I know the philosophy, Peter. I know
it very well. I spent nine years in a
place called Dachau praying to God
I’d die before each dawn.

51. MOVING SHOT WI TH HIM

As he walks over to a small desk, taps
his pipe into an ashtray there, then refills
it from a humidor.

52. REVERSE ANGLE HOOKING
OVER HIS SHOULDER
BACK AT VOLLMER

Who is perched on the edge of his seat.
VOLLMER

A man ... a man does what he
believes in.

50. TWO SHOT

As Ganz stares at the arm band and
throws it back down on top of the shirt
and the rest of the paraphernalia. He
rises from the chair.

GANZ
(very softly)

A man usually does.

VOLLMER

I believe in certain things
GANZ

Is that a fact?

(another pause)

You know who put me there?

(he points his pipe stem at
Vollmer)

Peter Vollmer. A lot of Peter Vollmers.
Hungry men. Frustrated men. Sick
men ... but the result ... the effect

never mind the cause— was
twelve million bodies in shaliow graves.
He sits down close to Vollmer. His voice
remains quiet.

GANZ

And it all started with young men in
uniforms talking on street corners.

56. CLOSE SHOT VOLLMER

His voice is almost accusative.
VOLLMER

You let me come. You’ve never turned
me away.

57. TWO SHOT FAVORING GANZ

GANZ
(very softly)

No, I never did. I never do. The
weakness that you scream about on
your street corner. The sentimentality.
The softness. The weakness that
makes a man his brother’s keeper. So
I must be one of the worst of your
criminals, Peter. Weak, sentimental,
soft . . . and very preoccupied with my
brother.

(he rises, his voice tired)

I should close the door on you.

(he looks up into the boy’s face)

But perhaps . . . this is my sickness.

I see the boy ... not the man.
(another pause)

You know where the blankets are and
the extra pillow. Sleep on the couch.
He walks across the room toward the
door.

58. ANGLE SHOT OVER GANZ’S
SHOULDER AT VOLLMER

Who stands up, tears in his eyes. He
takes a step toward him, his hands out-
stretched at his sides.

VOLLMER

Look . . . look . . . why don’t you
understand? You’re like a father.
You’re just like a father. You’re the
only person in the world I feel any . . .
any love for at all. What have I ever
had to love? A drunk father who used
to throw me against walls? An old lady
without any marbles who didn’t even
recognize me half the time?

(then, intensely)

That’s why I used to . . . that’s why
I used to come over here, Ernst,
because . . . you were gentle.
Because you’d talk to me. Feed me.
Take care of me. Ernst . . . Ernst,
you're my father!

59. CLOSER ANGLE GANZ

GANZ

(he closes his eyes, nods)

That is the boy again speaking. That’s
the little boy with so much fear In him.
So rest well, boy. That’s what you
must do. Rest well.

He turns and goes into his bedroom leav-
ing Vollmer standing there stockstill at
the sound of the door closing. He turns,
his eyes travel to the floor. He 'suddenly
grabs the shirt from the floor and holds
It out in his hands staring down at it, then
very carefully starts to fold up the cloth-

Twilight Zone 89

ing and then smooths out the arm band.
He walks over to the couch and lies
down, hands behind his head, staring ug
at the ceiling. Just once he lets his eyes
travel toward the arm band.

CUT TO:

60. INSERT THE LIBERTY BELL

61. REVERSE ANGLE
LOOKING TOWARD VOLLMER

Lying on the couch as he stares at the
ceiling again. From far off in a hidden
portion of his mind is the sound of a
screaming mob shouting over and over
again. It builds and builds and builds until
it is one shrieking morass of noise. The
camera moves in for:

62. EXTREMELY TIGHT CLOSE
SHOT VOLLMER’S FACE

As he smiles and closes his eyes just as
if he were listening to a lullaby.

DISSOLVE TO:

63. INTERIOR GANZ’S LIVING
ROOM LATE AT NIGHT
ANGLE SHOT LOOKING
DOWN AT A SLEEPING
VOLLMER

Whose eyes open, blink a ceuple of
times. He half sits up, listens carefully,
looks around warily, then very slowly sits
all the way up, then swings his legs over
to sit at the edge of the couch. He very
slowly rises, looks around him, then
walks over to a window facing the front
of the apartment.

64. CLOSE PROFILE SHOT
VOLLMER

As he stands at the window staring out
into the night and the empty streets be-
low. The camera arcs around so that it
is shooting over his shoulder down to-
ward the street and then we see what he
sees— a shadowy figure who stands alone
in the darkness staring up toward the
window.

65. " CLOSE SHOT VOLLMER

His eyes grow wide as he stares. His first
instincitve reaction is fear and then, fol-
lowing this, his curiosity.

VOLLMER

Who’s out there? Who is it?

CUT TO:

66. LONG SHOT DOWN TO THE
STREET

Where the man stays in shadow and a
man’s voice comes back, strangely hol-
low and distant, carrying with it an inde-
terminate accent.

MAN’S VOICE
A friend, Mr. Vollmer.

VOLLMER

A friend?

MAN’S VOICE

You have need of friends. Allies.

(a pause)

Come down, Mr. Vollmer. Come down
and we’ll talk— you and I.

CUT TO:

67. CLOSE SHOT VOLLMER

As he backs away from the window-
unsure, indecisive, but his curiosity still
aroused.

66. ANOTHER ANGLE OF HIM

As he turns, walks very quietly to the
door, opens it carefully, goes outside.

CUT TO:

69. INTERIOR HALLWAY ANGLE
SHOT LOOKING DOWN THE
STAIRS

As Vollmer walks down the steps toward
the first floor landing.

CUT TO:

70. EXTERIOR STREET NIGHT

Vollmer comes out of the door and
stands for a moment staring out into the
darkness.

71. REVERSE ANGLE LOOKING
OVER HIS SHOULDER

At the shrouded figure who remains in
the shadows.

MAN

Hello, Mr. Vollmer.

VOLLMER

Who are you? How did you know
where I was?

MAN

(laughs)

I simply followed your tears, Mr.
Vollmer.

72. CLOSE SHOT VOLLMER

His face freezes.

VOLLMER

You said you had something to talk
about—

MAN

I do. I do, indeed. I have you to talk
about. And the things you believe in
. . . which are the things I believe in
as well. Your success, Mr. Vollmer
. . . will be my success.

VOLLMER

(warily)

Go on.

MAN

Let us start by your learning what are
the dynamics of a crowd. How do you
move a mob, Mr. Vollmer? How do
you excite them? How do you make
them feel as one with you?
VOLLMER
(very softly)

How?

MAN

Join them first, Mr. Vollmer. When you
speak to then, speak to them as if
you were a pairt of the mob. Speak to
them in their language. On their level.
Make their hate your hate. Look for
their weaknesses and play on them.
Find what it is that sets them off— and
put a fire under that thing. If they are
poor . . . talk to them about poverty.
If they’re afraid . . . talk to them about
their fears. And if they’re angry, Mr.
Vollmer ... if they’re angry, give
them objects for anger. But the impor-
tant thing, Mr Vollmer ... the thing
that is of most the essence ... is that
you make thi.s mob an extension of

90 Twilight Zone

yourself! Say things like . . . say
things like . . . “They call us hate
mongers. They say we’re prejudiced.
They say we’re biased. They say we
hate the minorities.

(a pause)

The minorites! Understand the term,
neighbors— minorities. Should I tell
you who the minorities are? Shall I tell
you?

(then shrieking it out)

We are the minorities!

(a pause)

That way, Mr. Vollmer. Start it that
way.

The camera is shooting up toward Voll-
mer, his face illuminated by the lamplight.
He lets it sink in then nods.

VOLLMER

I understand. I think I understand . . .
Neighbors . . . neighbors— they call us
hate mongers. They say we’re pre-
judiced . . . they say we’re biased . . .

LAP DISSOLVE TO:

73. INTERtOR MEETING HALL
AN EXAGGERATED SHOT
LOOKING UP TOV/ARD
VOLLMER NIGHT

Just winding up a speech on the podium.
And now we’re getting a sense of the
man’s new power.

VOLLMER

(sweating, his tie pulktd down,
but now in command)

. . . so there you have it, neighbors.
They call us hate mongers. They say
we’re prejudiced. They say we’re bi-
ased. They say we hate the minorities.

(a pause)

The minorities! Understand the term,
neighbors— minorities.

(he leans forward, fists clenched)

Shall I tell you who the minorities are?

(then, shrieking it out)

We are the minorities! Because
patriotism is the minority. Because
love of country is the minority. Be-
cause to live in a free wfiite America
seems to be a minority opinion. Let
me tell you something, neighbors . . .
and dwell on this. Dwell on it. We had
an atom bomb . . . and suddenly the
Russians had it. We wanted to send
men into space ... but it was the
Russians who sent them up first. We
had a hydrogen bomb ... but it was
the Russians who exploded theirs.

(now, shouting again)

Who gave them the bombs? Who sold
us out? Who stabbed us in the back?
Well, if it’s the minority opinion that
we have to survive . . . then we are
the minority. And this minority will not
rest until it’s the majority. This minori-
ty will not give up the fight until once
again it can rise up wiih its head
high— strong and clean and right. This
is the promise . . . and this is the
legacy, so help me God!

At this moment there is a 'oar from the
crowd— an animal roar. Tho kind of in-
stinctive impulsive emotional reaction that
men get when a nerve has been prodded.

74. ANOTHER ANGLE
THE PLATFORM

As men rush to surround Peter Vollmer
and he’s engulfed by back-slappers and
hand-shakers and well-wishers. Some of
the men wear grey uniforms and the arm
bands, and Vollmer quietly receives them
like a potentate. His smile is a thin mettle
worn on a satisfied face.

FADE TO BLACK:

END OF ACT ONE

ACT TWO

FADE ON:

75. INTERIOR MEETING HALL
NIGHT FULL SHOT
THE ROOM

As Vollmer is still surrounded by well-
wishers.

76. SHOT OF CORRIDOR

Outside the meeting hall where we can
see the commotion still going on inside.
A small, portly, harried man (Gibbons)
paces back and forth, drumming his fin-
gers together. We see a uniformed man
climb up on the platform and call for
silence. At the same time, Vollmer
pushes his way past knots of people and
starts out into the corridor. Over his
shoulder the man on the platform holds
up his hands.

STANLEY

Can I have your attention, please,
friends? Can I please have your atten-
tion? We’re going to give Peter
Vollmer a few moments to relax and
then he’ll be back to talk to us some
more and tell us of the organization’s
plans. In the meantime, just relax and
talk amongst yourselves. Talk about
the things you’ve heard here tonight.

77. CLOSER ANGLE VOLLMER
AND HIS THREE CRONIES

As they come out into the corridor. Gib-
bons moves directly to them.

GIBBONS

Look, I’m not gonna wait no longer
—understand?

(with a look toward the others
as if expecting cooperation
immediatley— a ritual with them)
C’mon, Gibbons. Let it keep for an
hour. We’re very busy now.

GIBBONS

It ain’t gonna keep for an hour. It ain’t
gonna keep for another five minutes.

I want it settled now. I told yuh— no
dough, no rental. No dough, no use of
the hall. I ain’t runnin’ this place
because of the pleasure it gives me —
you can believe me.

VOLLMER

(serenely)

What’s the problem?

NICK

(with exaggerated concern)

Oh, this is a hungry man here, Pete.
Such a hungry man. Gotta have his
sheckles.

(he wiggles his fat fingers
grotesquely)

Gotta have his li’l ol’ money.

GIBBONS

(flushing)

I been tellin’ you guys you’re three
weeks back on the rent for the hall.
You told me I’d get it a week ago.
And all I did get was cigarette butts
on the floor.

VOLLMER
(still very serene)

I’m to understand then, Mr. Gibbons,
that you want to lock us out of the hall
because of a couple of weeks of lousy
rent?

GIBBONS

You understand right. Two hundred
bucks due— and two hundred bucks
ain’t received.

FRANK

How about a collection—

GIBBONS

(interrupting) _

Never mind the collection. We went
that route last week. You gave me
twelve bucks on account. That don’t
put a ripple in the stream, pal. I
could’a rented the hall out a dozen
times while I’m waitin’ for you guys
and your collections.

78. CLOSE SHOT VOLLMER

His face still unperturbed. He jerks his
thumb in the direction of the open door.
VOLLMER

Did you hear that out there tonight,
Mr. Gibbons?

Gibbons

I heard— I heard! I can’t put noise in
the bank, Vollmer.

VOLLMER

You’d be surprised, Mr. Gibbons, tiow
important that noise is. Or perhaps
you don’t believe in our movement?

79. PAN SHOT ACROSS THE
FACES OF FRANK, NICK,

AND STANLEY

Who wait expectantly for a response.

80. CLOSE SHOT GIBBONS

He eyes the men around him nervously,
wets his lips.

GIBBONS

Look, Vollmer— this ain’t got nothin’ to
do with politics. I don’t care if you was
the Townsend Plan or the Associataed
Chicken Pluckers of America. You pay
the money and you get the hall. And
what you do in the hall is your own
business. But I gotta get paid. It’s as
simple as that.

VOLLMER

It isn’t as simple as that. We happen
to be a young movement. We’re still
struggling. We need time to grow.
GIBBONS

I don’t rent time. I just rent the hall.
Now, it’s the money — or you guys bet-
ter fix up a piatform in the park.

81. ANOTHER ANGLE
THE GROUP

As Gibbons walks away from them.
NICK

(nervously)

..i

Twilight Zone 91

What do we do, Pete? I mean . . . we
gotta do something.

FRANK

(flexes an arm and sticks
out a fist)

I don’t know why we walk tip-toe with
this guy. Why don’t I just educate
him? I could do that, Pete— I guaran-
tee it!

82. SHOT OF THE DOUBLE DOORS

As a man comes out, his eyes searching
and finding Vollmer. He walks over to
him, hands him an envelope.

STANLEY

Somebody left this for you, Pete.
Vollmer looks down at the envelope.
VOLLMER

Who?

STANLEY

Nobody saw him. It was just left at the
door. Your name’s on it.

Vollmer looks down, opens the envelope,
take out two bills.

NICK

(wide-eyed, grabs Vollmer’s wrist)

Two ”C” notes.

(then to Vollmer)

Ain’t that wild? We needed two hun-
dred bucks rent— and here it is!

VOLLMER ,

(to the man)

Anybody see who it was?

(he taps on the envelope)
Anybody get a look at whoever left
this?

• STANLEY

(heading back into the hall)

I don’t think so, Pete. Message was
that you were to get it, that’s all.
Vollmer looks down at the money, whirls
around at Gibbons who is tacking things
on a bulletin board at the far end of the
hall.

VOLLMER

(shouts)

Hey, Gibbons!

83. LONG SHOT OVER VOLLMER‘S
SHOULDERS OF GIBBONS

As he turns around.

VOLLMER
Come and get it.

Gibbons, with a broad smile, starts to
walk toward Vollmer, a hand out-
stretched. Vollmer lets the money drop to
the floor, turns abruptly and walks down
toward the opposite end of the corridor
toward a fire escape door that leads to
an alley.

CUT TO:

84. EXTERIOR ALLEY NIGHT

As Vollmer walks out flanked by the other
three men. He takes out a cigarette. Nick
lights it for him.

FRANK

Where’d the dough come from, Pete?
Any idea?

Vollmer doesn’t answer. He draws deeply
on the cigarette, blows the smoke out,
and just stands there.

STANLEY

(looks at him with a kind of

You were great tonight, Pete. You
were really something. I can’t ... I
can’t describe how it sounded.

(he holds out his hand)

There they were. Right in the palm.
The men smile amongst themselves with
a kind of collective pride and look expec-
tantly toward Vollmer who remains silent
for a moment, then takes a final drag and
flicks the cigarette away into the alley. He
turns toward Frank.

VOLLMER

(with a crooked grin)

Yeah, Frank — we’re gonna make it.
Now we’re gonna make it!

FRANK
(grins, winks)

You bet your life!

Vollmer turns and walks back into the
building. The other three follow him.

DISSOLVE TO:

85. INTERfOR CORRIDOR
OUTSIDE OF THE HALL
NIGHT

We see the last groups of people leaving.
Frank and Stanley walk toward Nick who
joins them.

NICK

Pete says we should wait outside for
him.

The two men nod and all three go down
the hallway toward the alley door and
then exit.

CUT TO:

86. INTERIOR HALL

As the audience lights go off leaving a
single spot shining on the platform.

87. HIGH ANGLE SHOT LOOKING
DOWN ON VOLLMER

As he sorts papers together, scribbles a
few notes.

88. CLOSER ANGLE OF HIM

As he slowly looks up, a look of question-
ing on his face. He peers out toward the
dark recesses of the auditorium.

89. REVERSE ANGLE LOOKING
OVER HIS SHOULDER

Toward the darkened ha!!. The place is
completely quiet.

VOLLMER

(his voice echoing strangely in
the silent naked room)

Who’s out there? Somebody out
there?

90. ANOTHER ANGLE SHOOTING
ACROSS THE EMPTY CHAIRS

Toward the last row where we see the
shadowy figure of the man in silhouette
sitting in one of the chairs.

MAN

(with the same
unrevealing accent)

An excellent performance, Mr. Voll-
mer. Very effective. You learn quickly.
VOLLMER

Thanks.

(a pause)

But I’d like to know ... I’d like to
know who I’m thanking.

MAN

It doesn’t make very much difference.
I’m just pleas(3d I could be of help.
You learned the style very well. You
delivered it precisely as I told you.
VOLLMER

(a little bit discomfitted)

I’m obliged.

(another pause)

And the money?

MAN

The least I could do, Mr. Vollmer. We
couldn’t have you thrown out into the
streets. I happen to feel that your
work is very important.

91. CLOSER ANGLE VOLLMER

As he peers out into the darkness.
V'OLLMER

Are you . . . are you one of us?

92. LONG SHOT TOWARD
THE SHADOWY FIGURE

MAN

One of you? Mr. Vollmer . . . you
might say that ... I am you. I pre-
dated you. In a manner of speaking
... I gave birth to you.

(a pause)

Now I have some suggestions. I’ll con-
tinue to give you some speeches but
there’s another item of importance
that has to be taken care of.
VOLLMER

What’s that?

MAN

An expedient, Mr. Vollmer. Or you
might call it ... a cause celebre.
Something to cement the organization
together.

VOLLMER

I don’t understand —

MAN

A martyr, Mr. Vollmer. The organiza-
tion needs a martyr.

VOLLMER

A martyr?

(a pause, his voice
slightly shaking)

How? How do you find a martyr?
There is a low augh from the far point
of the hall.

MAN

You don’t find one, Mr. Vollmer. You
choose one. You pick out the one of
least value. And you turn him into a
symbol. You wrap him in a flag. You
make his death work for you.

(a pause)

Find a man, Mr. Vollmer, who has no
worth while alive ... but who can
serve you when he’s dead. Is there
someone?

93. CLOSE SHOT

As this sinks in. He suddenly turns
abruptly to stare toward the open doors.

94. LONG SHOT THE DOORS

As Nick come through— fat, fumbling,
obsequious.

92 Twilight Zone

NICK

(looking around)

Pete? The boys are waiting.

95. CLOSER ANGLE VOLLMER

Who stares at Nick, then loward the rear
of the auditorium.

VOLLMER

Yeah, Nick. I’ll be right there.

96. CLOSE SHOT NICK

He holds out his hand n a salute— a
grotesque, idiotic gesture.

NICK

Right, Pete. I’ll be outside.

(he turns then stops, turns
again back toward Vollmer)

You talkin’ to somebody?

97. EXTREMELY TIGHT CLOSE
SHOT VOLLMER

On the platform. His face is suddenly
beaded with sweat. His eyes go down.
He’s obviously struggling convulsively
with a decision that has to be made. He
looks up abruptly and calls out.
VOLLMER
(calling out)

Hey, Nick! Tell . . . tell Pank to come
in here. Alone.

98. LONG ANGLE SHOT
LOOKING DOWN AT NICK

Who is always so anxious to please that
he can hardly get out fast enough.

NICK

Sure thing, Pete. Right .away.

He hurries out the hallway door. The
camera pans back over for a:

99. SHOT OF VOLLMER

Who stands there motionless, then forces
his eyes up to stare out across the hall.

100. LONG SHOT OVER HIS

SHOULDERS THE HALL

The figure is still visible in the shadowy
rear.

MAN

Excellent, Mr, Vollmer, An excellent
choice.

101. REVERSE ANGLE LOOKING

TOWARD VOLLMER

Down the center aisle.

VOLLMER

(his voice shaking now)

I ... I don’t know. It’s just . . . it’s
(he stops, shakes his head)

I was just thinking that maybe there’s
some other way —

MAN

Some other way?

(his voice suddenly rises)

There is no other way, l\^r. Vollmer.
And if you soften up ... if you
weaken . . . there’s no point in going
on. When Frank comes in, tell him
that you’ve discovered an informer.
Tell him the informer has done you ir-
reparable damage. Tell him the in-
former must be put away. But put
away cleverly, Mr. Vollmer. Put away
subtlely. Put away so that there is some

question as to ... who is responsible.

102. CLOSE SHOT VOLLMER

His features work.

VOLLMER

Nick . . . Nick’s been around since
the beginning.

MAN

(there is suddenly a tension to
his voice — an excitement — a fer-
vor that we’ve not heard before)
From the beginning? Oh, no, Mr.
Vollmer— none of you were there at
the beginning. None of you.

There is suddenly the sound of footsteps
ringing hollowly on the concrete outside
as they approach the double doors lead-
ing to the hall. Vollmer whirls around to
face the rear of the auditorium.
VOLLMER

Nick . . . Nick’s my friend.

MAN

And this is an act of friendship. We’re
allowing him to serve the cause.

103. LONG SHOT

THE DOUBLE DOORS

As they open and Frank enters. He looks
around briefly then up toward the
platform.

FRANK

Nick says you wanted to see me,
Pete.

104. ANGLE SHOT OVER FRANK’S

SHOULDER VOLLMER

On the platform.

VOLLMER

We’ve got a stoolie in the group,
Frank.

FRANK

A stoolie?

VOLLMER

Nick’s been talking. I think the police
hired him.

FRANK

(appalled)

Nick? Nick’s done that?

VOLLMER

I know it to be a fact. Everything
we’ve done . . . everything we’ve said
. . . Nick’s been telling.

105. CLOSE SHOT FRANK

The features set.

FRANK

What do we do, Pete?

106. ANGLE SHOT LOOKING UP

AT VOLLMER

Who seems to loom over the room. He
leans fonward on the platform.

' VOLLMER
What do we do, Frank?

There is a silence between the two men,-

107. REVERSE ANGLE LOOKING

TOWARD FRANK

FRANK
(very softly)

You tell me, Pete. That’s all that’s re-
quired, You just tell me.

108. REVERSE ANGLE LOOKING
TOWARD VOLLMER

VOLLMER

Get rid of him, Frank. Get rid of him
so it looks like ... it looks like
somebody else has gotten rid of him.
Someone who hates us.

109. CLOSE SHOT FRANK

FRANK

I understand. I understand, Pete,
(he looks up toward Vollmer, his
face a grim mask of determina-
tion and reverence)

JYou call it, Pete — you got it!

110. ANOTHER ANGLE OF HIM

As he turns and walks back through the
hall’s double doors.

CUT TO:

Twilight Zone 93

122. CLOSE SHOT

THE POLICEMEN

As they arrive a>: a prostrate figure lying
on his face.

123. ANGLE SHOT OVER THE
POLICEMEN’S SHOULDERS

As one of them kneels down and turns
the body over. There is Nick looking up,
glassy-eyed and dead. A note has been
pinned to his coat, and on it, it reads, A

Good Fascist.

DISSOLVE TO:

124. INTERIOR MEETING HALL
LONG ANGLE SHOT
LOOKING DOWN AT
VOLLMER NIGHT

Sitting alone in the front row. There are
footsteps echoing again outside, then the
double doors open.

toward the mouth of an alley as night
time strollers stsirt to collect.

CUT TO:

platform. They are pictures of several of
the members of the organization includ-
ing himself, and then to their right are
pictures of several of the old Nazi hier-
archy — Hitler, Goebbels, Goering, and
Benito Mussolini.

117. ANOTHER CLOSER
ANGLE VOLLMER

As he walks over to the picture of Hitler.
It’s the historic portrait in three quarter
pose, the thumbs over the belt. Vollmer
unconsciously begins to mimic the pose,
sticking his own thumbs through his belt.
There is suddenly a loud piercing raucous
laugh from the back of the hall.

CUT TO:

118. CLOSE SHOT VOLLMER

As he whirls around to stare toward the
laugh.

CUT TO:

119. LONG SHOT OVER HIS SHOUL-
DER TOWARD THE EMPTY
ROOM

CUT TO:

120. CLOSE SHOT VOLLMER

As he turns very slowly, looks toward the
pictures, then moves back toward the
platform, walks up the steps, stands on
the podium, looks out at the empty room
and simply waits.

DISSOLVE TO:

121. EXTERIOR STREET
LATE AT NIGHT

A prowl car screeches to a sirened stop.
Two policemen get out hurriedly and run

125. ANGLE SHOT VOLLMER

As he turns to stare toward the double
doors, then walks out to meet Frank, who
stands there in the corridor.

FRANK

Hey, Pete.

(a long pause)

Cross off the fal one.

126. CLOSE SHOT VOLLMER

VOLLMER

I will.

FRANK

Anything else?

VOLLMER
(shakes his head)

I'll see you latsr.

FRANK

Right.

He turns and retiaces his steps down the
corridor. Vollmer stands there for a silent
moment, then walks through the double
doors back into the hall.

127. MOVING SHOT WITH HIM

As he walks up to the platform, faces the
empty audience, his eyes sweeping the
seats left and tight, his face suddenly
looking triumphant— full of strength, ac-
complishment, rfisolve.

VOLLMER

We . . . now ... all of us ... have
a martyr!

(then shouting and pounding his
fist on the podium)

We have a martyr!

A slow pan back to the audience as we
hear the strange echoey sound of a
single man appl.auding.

128. AN EXTREMELY LONG
SHOT TOWARD THE
SHADOVrY FIGURE

Who stands at the back of the room clap-
ping his hands.

•SLOW FADE TO BLACK:
END ACT TWO

(TO BE CONTINUED)

112. LONG SHOT OVER HIS

SHOULDER OF THE EMPTY
HALL

The figure is no longer there.

VOLLMER

Hey. Hey — you still out there?

113. HIGH ANGLE SHOT
LOOKING DOWN AT
VOLLMER

As he jumps from the platform and runs
the length of the hall to the rear seats,
looking left and right as does so.

CUT TO:

114. BACK AREA OF THE HALL

As Vollmer gets there. It’s empty.

115. CLOSER ANGLE VOLLMER

As he looks around, then very slowly
turns and retraces his steps back to the
platform.

116. MOVING SHOT WITH HIM

As he walks. Just before he reaches the
platform, he pauses and very slowly turns
to a bank of pictures on one wall near the

111. ANOTHER ANGLE
VOLLMER

On the platform. He waits until the sound
of the footsteps have disappeared, then
he turns to face the rear of the hall. He
looks around briefly, frowns, and then
moves out of the light to the very edge
of the proscenium, scanning the darkness.
VOLLMER

Who are you anyway? When will we
see you?

94 Twilight Zone

T7 SCREEN

by GAHAN WILSON

Christopher Lambert swashmg It up in Highlander.

They're here,
they're different,
and they're bad.

A number of very earnest films
showed up this time around, but
none of them, for all their obvious
sincerity, for all their hard work and
genuine ingenuity and good inten- S
tions, really worked. i-

The most successful of them |
was Nomads, written and directed “
by John McTiernan, which plays with |
the always potentially strong fantasy I
ploy that there is a strange and evil g
race which dwells among us, and i
has preyed upon us for eons without ®
any but a tiny number of us ever |>
becoming aware they I ve within our |
midst.

The ancient evildoers in Nomads I
are Eskimo demons who have some-
how wandered to Southern California
and taken the guise o' punk bikers
— metal-studded, black-leather gear,
fancy chop haircuts, and “Look,
Maw, I’m dying!” make-up — except
that the nasty little group the film
centers on favors ridinci around in a
snappy little van with louvers on the
windows.

Driven by a callous society (the
central thesis of the movie is that
Los Angeles is every bit as much a
primitive settlement as a thatched
village in the lower Amazon, and I’d
hate to be the one who had to refute
it), these creatures of magical pro-
wess have commited their rather
repetitious depredations on the poor
humans who have been unfortunate
enough to catch their eye. No one is
the wiser until Pierce Drosnan, who
plays a famous French anthropolo-
gist, happens to spot them on ac-
count of— and it’s a cute touch— his
special training and experience as an
observer of savage tribes.

The Eskimo demons come on
with the panache of Charlie Manson,
writing things like PIGS and BLOOD
on Brosnan’s freshly rented canyon
house, and, scientifically intrigued, the
anthropologist grabs his camera, goes
on the stalk and, of course, learns
more than man was meant to know.

We learn what he learned via
flashbacks in the head cf a very pret-
ty, LA doctor played by Lesley-Anne
Down. How she believes; these revel-
ations and what she does with them

is well done, by Down and the film
at large. In fact, the whole thing is
well done, has an intelligent, com-
plex plot, and is full of clever shocks
and nice ironies, but, in spite of
buckets of blood and a fine helping
of sad-masochistic foolery, the film
somehow never really whacks you on
the side of the head. It’s all too
remote and intellectual; you neither
jerk nor jump. And when you go to
movies like this you are supposed to
jump.

Highlander stars the up and
coming Christopher Lambert as a
near-immortal, one of a race of im-
mortals who, like the Eskimo chap-
pies above, have dwelt among a lav-
ishly unobservant humanity for years.

Just exactly why Lambert and
his fellow immortals are immortals is
never made quite clear, but then
quite a lot about this movie is not
made clear. The film is stylish, but
I’m afraid it never does make too
much sense, and, of course, if you’re
doing a fantasy it most desperately
must make sense— within its para-
meters — if it’s to be believed.

However, with a cape twirler like
Lambert and, better yet, one like
Sean Connnery, the viewer can be
entirely pardoned if he is swept away
by the sheer bravado of the thing,
and there is much fun had with mys-
terious clashes of ancient swords in
underground parking lots and an ex-
cellent evocation of a barbaric Scot-

tish village of nearly Macbethean
times. And, by no means least, we
have yet another barb-studded,
black-leathered bully, this one played
with villianous authority by Clancy
Brown, who holds the fearsome scar
across his neck shut by means of
high-pufik safety pins, and delights in
snuffing out supplicants’ candles in
Catholic churches. Who could resist
the likes of a rogue such as that?

But don’t ask for a clear ex-
planation of what these bold and
dashing fellows are up to. They are
some sort of royalty, the last two of
whom do penultimate battle to lead
(advise?) humanity. You and me.
The little people. Got it? And, of
course, the fight is between the best
and the worst of them. You root for
Lambert — since nobody who’s not in-
to slave games would want to be
ruled by Clancy Brown.

One notable aspect of the film is
the screaming of Roxanne Hart as a
lovely metallurgical (sic) expert who
becomes romantically involved with
Lambert. During the above-mentioned
penultimate battle she is ensconced
on the huge, red WONDER BREAD
sign that shines on Manhattan from
across the river and in shot after
shot of her, with the Empire State
Building over her shoulder, she does
her valiant best to outdo Fay Wray.
I’m afraid all it does is set your mind
to making comparisons not particu-
larly favorable to Highlander. ■

Twilight Zone 95

Dastardly Doc Wilson and his
disabled assistant, David Duffleld.

GAHAN

GAHAN WILSON’S

WEIRD

WEEKEND

Wilson, King, and Straub camp if up

in the Catskills.

WILSON

Nowadays you can buy murders
attractively boxed with complete in-
structions for thie suspects and a full
set of clues and red herrings for the
sleuths at your friendly local book-
store. Bring tiome one of these
sinister little kits, take as directed,
and you and your friends can pass
a pleasant and diverting evening by
staging a pretend homicide and then
solving it. It’s fun, it’s simple, and no
one really gets hurt.

It was nol always so easy to
hold a harmless little killing; indeed
the whole odd notion of murder for
fun is a relatively new one. The first
fantasy slaughter was committed at a
legendary den of unbridled rusticity,
Mohonk Mountain House, a vast,
rambling hotel built in the late 1800s,
a sort of monument to Currier and
Ives posh. It is a huge, multi-towered
lair erected for nature lovers of the
Teddy Roosevfilt school who, when
they were identifying wildflowers or
taking hearty hikes, liked to rock on
vast porches or sit in view-command-
ing gazebos as they sipped strictly
non-alcoholic lemonades.

The old piece lends itself well to
mysterious goings-on, for though it’s
still thoroughly open and very much
in business, you know its heart is in
the past. The bearded portraits lining
its labyrinthine halls, the gas lamp
era fixtures only grudgingly adapted
to electricity, the dark woodwork, the
turreted gothic rooftops— all these
conspire firmly to evoke images from
spooky old movies about spooky old
houses where wills are read by
doomed lawyers to sinister benefi-
ciaries while brooding butlers eaves-
drop and plot v/hat to put in the tea.
For this reason, and because it is
clearly commercially profitably, Mohonk
was the site of choice for the first
murder-for-fun. It has also profitably
remembered that event by an annual
celebration of a new and different
slaughter ever since.

The present host and creator of
the Mohonk Mystery Weekends is
Donald E. Westlake. Westlake is, as
you probably know, the author of any
number of successful mystery
novels, usually with a nice, whacky
twist, and he is a skilled lurer-in of
participants fot mystery weekends.
After comparing notes with my fellow
particiants Stephen King and Peter
Straub, we ce;me to the tentative

recollection that Westlake had called
all of us with the information that the
other two had already accepted his
invitation and would be present; of
course, that’s impossible since one
of us had to be the first one he
called, but the invitation had been
made over a year ago, another sly,
Westlakian maneuver: anything tak-
ing place that far along down the
road seems unreal so you figure
what the hell, why not?

It was, therefore, with a little
more than mild foreboding that I ap-
proached Mount Mohcnk House,
slouched in the back sest of the car
they had sent to get me. I was hav-
ing second thoughts and even occa-
sional third ones.

The drive up had been smooth
enough, but as the car simulta-
neously drove into thicker and
thicker fog and ever deeper into
upstate New York I realized, with a
little start of horror, that I was in ge-
nuine Lament Cranston and Margo
Lane territory! How often had Margo
and Lament prowled this area in
various episodes of The Shadow in
just this kind of foul weather, only to
find themselves lost and knocking at
the door of an isolated mansion con-
taining a waiting mad scientist, or an
insane murderer lusting fiDr fresh vic-
tims? Very often, was the answer.
Loads of times.

The twisted trees in the fields
beside the road began to grow ever
harder to discern because of the
thickening fog, and the steepness of
the road grew more pronounced as
we neared our goal. When we
passed the guardhouse — somehow I
didn’t too much like the ook of that
guardhouse — the fog was positively
Disneyian in its opacity, and I
thought again and again of the witch
in Snow White falling to her death

vampires Katherine Dutfleld,

Peter Straub, and Susan Newman.

from high mountains through dank
clouds to the amusement of circling
vultures.

Now even the driver — who had,
up to now, been determinedly
cheerful — began to show signs of
unease. After we had rounded a par-
ticularly terrifying, almost invisible
curve about the lip of a bottomless
abyss, he turned and admitted in an
awed tone of voice that one general-
ly had a grand view of the building’s
towers from where we were. When
we arrived at the actual entrance to
the building, and it still remained en-
tirely shrouded from view, he was
reduced to mute shakings of his
head.

I stepped into the murk on faith,
assuming that there actually was a
building there and, sure enough, I
eventually found myself in a large,
rustic lobby full of bulletin boards
festooned with announcements and
schedules and instructions concern-
ing the mystery weekend. I made my
way to the desk, announced myself
and, after being given armfuls of
envelopes and folders, was led to my
room.

My quarters were both spartan
and comfortable in the true Teddy
Roosevelt tradition. The rugged
fireplace contained huge, ideally
seasoned logs, there were little rock-
ing chairs on a tiny porch, the bed
was covered with chintz, and a stark,
erstwhile gas lamp hung from the
ceiling exactly as it had back in the
days of Woodrow Wilson.

Among the papers were my in-
structions, and they certainly
sounded ominous. The game was
titled Transylvania Station, the special
stationery printed up for it featuring
bats and tiny stills from old horror
films. I was to pretend to be the sini-
ster Doctor Frankenstein, a fellow

clearly designed to create the im-
pression of being another Franken-
stein, but who, if questioned cleverly
enough, would reveal himself to be
a sleazy crook.

Westlake had provided me with
this unsavory character’s entire case
history, and clearly expected me to
have it down sufficiently to be able
to face not one, but two mass in-
terrogations — I checked the accom-
panying schedule in hopes I had
misunderstood, but I had not — tomor-
row. Another note informed me I was
almost late for a party being held for
the cast participants, -so I adjusted
my ascot, trying to get that David
Niven pop to it, and made my way
to Westlake’s quarters.

More facets became clear over
the general hubub. Steve King was
going to be Barry Talmud, a were-
wolf— a pretend werewolf, mind you,
since all the characters in the game
were meant only to seem truly
gothic. Peter Straub was to play the
mysterious Hungarian Count Alucard,
and if you took the time to spell his
name backward and figured he was
a vampire, then you had been suc-
cessfully misled.

There were many other charac-
ters, some played by actual actors
instead of authors or cartoonists. The
two most important to me as the
tricky doctor were my lovely fiancee,
Clara (our two characters were, in
reality, a confidence team), portrayed
by Susan Lehman, and my hunch-
backed assistant, played by David
Duffield.

I had never met Westlake, who
turned out to be a relaxed yet
tense fellow of considerable charm,

A writer In werewolf’s clothing,
Stephen King.

WEIRD

WEEKEND

at once the weekend’s author, direc-
tor, and producer. He moved among
us, alternately flashing confident
smiles and anxious glances of
despair, depending on our compre-
hension— or lack thereof.

The next event was an elaborate
and clever little slide show put on in
the auditorium. One could easily imag-
ine Doctor Knox doing demonstration
dissections of cadavers in the strange
old place. Here, for the first time, I
saw our detectives-to-be in a group,
some three hundred of them, and
an eager lot they looked to be. I
clutched my Doctor Frankenstein fact
sheet a little tighter. *

The slide show, with Westlake
reading his rhymed narration, told of
the librarian Joseph Gawker’s arrival
in foreboding Transylvania in order to
catalogue the castle library of Count
Alucard, and of how, after meeting
the Count’s eerie daughter Primeva
(Kathleen Duffield), his ailing ward
Lily Languish (Dorenna Hart), and an
extraordinarily sinister gypsy named
Madame Openskya lurking in an ar-
moire (Gloria Hoye), among others,
he was, alas, murdered'. But by
whom? Ah ha — there was the
mystery!

From the slide show we trooped
to dinner where. we found the menu
bat-ericrusted and loaded with such
items as Blood Soup, Grisly Greens,
Freshly Drawn & Quartered Pineapple,
and (sigh!) PETER STRAUBerries.

The guests at the mystery week-
end were divided into competing
groups with names such as the
Szygany Smilers, the Greatful
Undead, and the Roumanian Ruins.
Fifteen of them in all, and, clever lit-
tle titles to one side, each one grimly
determined to come up with at least
one of the two prize-winning goals:
The Most Accurate Solution (track
down all the clues, see through the
characters’ various evasions, and,
hopefully, even figure out whodunnit)
and The Most Creative Solution (who
cares whodunnit— come up with the
most entertaining and imaginative
fantasy based on your impression of
what you’ve seen).

Realizing the extreme serious-
ness with which all this was being
taken, I snuck off to my rustic little
room early on so that I might study
my Frankenstein fact file. It would
not do if I did not know that when
my laboratory assistant, Eeyore,
came lurching barefoot into the
parlor crying; “Master, it’s alive!” he
was referring to a peach fungus I
was attempting to grow in the base-
ment which I hoped would, if spread
on human skin, give it the texture
and softness of peach skin; it would
not do at all.

The next morning was a busy
one for me as I had to give a little
speech with slides of my cartoons
which culminated in a rousing ac-
count of a trip I took to Transylvania
wherein I survived (just) a landslide
in the Carpathian Mountains, and
made it to the Borgo Pass (all in-
terested parties may contact my lec-
ture bureau), before trotting off with
the rest of the suspects to a hidden
room wherein we were all costumed
and made up for our parts. Modesty
aside, I must say we made a very
credible bunch of miscreants.

Straub was without doubt the
most sinister, in his long black cape,
his face and dome a pallid, corpsy
hue, and his lips a livid purple, but
King’s make-up featured what was
clearly the oddest and most unusual
touch. Both his hands were covered
with long hair in the best Lon
Chaney, Jr., tradition. My own ap-
pearance was quite mild by com-
parison, but I sneakily managed to
get hold of a liner and, appearance
by appearance, added just a trace
more shadow under the eyes, just a
slightly more satanic bent to tthe
eyebrows’ outer corners.

The lot of us were then bundled
off to various parts of the huge old
building (it is actually a kind of
glued-together rustic city rather than
one structure and, viewed from a dis-
tance, looks like an American turn-of-
the-century fantasy of a medieval hill
town) so that we might be quizzed
by the investigators.

My chief regret in the whole
business is that, being one of the
suspects, I was not able to wander
around and watch the other suspects
at work. How I would have loved to
see how Peter fended off increasing-
ly eager queries about his missing
lunatic brother Perffy (Perffy was the
actual count, a homicidal maniac

kept locked for over twenty years in
a hidden tower room) or listen in on
Steve explaining why he had been
so determinedly avoiding the myste-
rious Madame Openskya (she is try-
ing to serve him with divorce papers
since he insists she read tea leaves
in New York)!

Myself, I decided to adopt a
French accent since my fraudulent
doctor operated from a clinic in Nice,
and since it seemed an unfair red
herring to drag over the trail leading
to the fact I vi/as actually an Ameri-
can con man. I must say the ques-
tioning really went quite well as the
detectives slowly but surely got my
nasty secrets one by one until,
despite my evasions and brushings-
off (it is forbidden a suspect to lie
about anyting except, of course,
whether he is or is not the
murderer), th(5y came closer and
closer to discovering my sinister
secret and possible motive for killing
poor old Joseph Gawker: he knew I
was not really a doctor and could
blow up my profitable deal with the
Count!

Eventually a sharp question
chipped away one edge of my cover
story, a second got the other, and a
third follow-up hit spang-on dead
center. I looked this way and that,
glowered, hunched, and when I ad-
mitted the ghastly truth was de-
lighted to hear a genuine gasp of
shock at my depravity come involun-
tarily from my questioners. A great
moment. A really swell one, which I
shall treasure henceforth.

The final clue session was a
seance in which Madame Openskya
used her psychic talents to bring the
spirit of Joseph Grawker back from
the grave. And, though this solemn
occasion was marred by periodic
bursts of hilarity, the detectives all
seemed pleased at the information
they’d garnered and retired to their
cubbyholes to organize their solu-
tions for evaluation on the morrow.

Perhaps the hardest task we had
was the judging. We did the best we
could, and perhaps we ended by
choosing the best.

On cue, this last day, the fog
had gone and the sky altogether
cleared; we villains went out into the
sunlight and, before we parted,
played croqueit. Not a very scary
scary thing for monsters to do,
perhaps, but fun. But then, so was
the whole thing. ■

98 Twilight Zone

by WELCH D. EVERMAN

fZmEO_

Just when you thought it was safe to turn
on your VCR — Beach Party Monster Movies

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms— an early rubber ducky.

Ah, summertime! The sun, the
sand, the sea, the surf. There’s noth-
ing like it. But, once again this sum-
mer, sun lovers, water skiers, scuba
divers, and beach bums will be faced
with that perennial question; What do
you do on a rainy day?

Allow me to suggest that this
summer you put away the cards and
poker chips, the Monopoly boards,
and the model airplanes. Instead, get
out your VCR, run down to the video
store, and put together your own
Beach Party Monster Movie Film
Festival. In some ways, an indoor
summer video festival is even better
than really going to the beach. You
can still get the sun, the sand, the
sea, and the surf, and you don’t run
the risk of sunburn. You don’t even
have to get wet.

The Beach Party Monster Movie —
or the BPMM, for short — has a long
if not always glorious history. Back in
the fifties and early sixties, while
Frankie and Annette were having in-
nocent fun in the surf, filmmakers
figured out that the beach could also
be a very scary place if there were
a few monsters scattered around. In
films like Where the Boys Are and
Beach Blanket Bingo, the boys
chased the girls and the girls chased
the boys. BPMMs used the same
idea, except that, in their case, a
creature chased everybody. And the
kids loved it.

The granddaddy of all BPMMs
is, of course, Roger Gorman’s Mon-
ster from the Ocean Floor (Vidmark
Entertainment) of 1954. This is a per-
fect example of Gorman’s “no frills”
style of filmmaking, but, even after
more than thirty years, it is still fun
to watch.

Julie is a young American tourist
cruising along the Pacific coast of
Mexico, and there she meets a fel-
low named Steve who explores the
ocean floor in a pedal-powered mini-
sub. Steve is a marine biologist who
really knows his stuff. He is always
saying things like: “Did you know
that over seventy percent of the
earth’s surface is covered by
water?” or “Think of it. One female
cod alone lays over eight million
eggs.” With lines like that, how can
Julie help but fall for him?

In the area, cows, dogs, and
even people have been disappearing
for some time, and the locals have
a legend about a sea devil that
comes out of the ocean when the
moon is full. Scientific Steve doesn’t
believe a word of all this, but Julie
decides to investigate, and, of
course, when she finally runs into
the sea devil, it’s Steve — now a
believer — who has to come to the
rescue.

True to the Gorman style, the
acting and production values are
terrible, and the monster — when it

finally shows up— is a cheap rubber
octopus with one huge red eye that
somehow manages to come up on
the beach to hunt for food whenever
there isn’t anything to its liking in the
water. Despite these shortcomings,
however. Monster from the Ocean
Floor is a classic that provided
everything filmmakers needed to
make countless BPMMs well into the
1980s.

Monster from the Ocean Floor
gave birth to a whole school of fifties
aquatic horror films like The Creature
from the Black Lagoon trilogy. It
Came From Beneath the Sea, and
The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms,
along with BPMM classics like The
Beach Girls and the Monster and The
Horror of Party Beach. But, by the
end of the sixties, the BPMM had
gone the way of hula hoops, poodle
skirts, and the Mickey Mouse Glub.
Apparently, we’d had enough fun in
the sun.

Then, in the summer of 1975,
when we were all convinced that it
was safe to go into the water, Steven
Spielberg’s Jaws (MGA) cleared the
beaches. If you haven’t seen Jaws in
a few years, it’s worth looking at it
again, because it is no doubt the
best BPMM ever made. Jaws draws
on the classic films of the fifties and
sixties and, by giving rise to more
sequels and copies that you can
shake a harpoon at, it also set the
tone for the new BPMMs of the
seventies and eighties.

It is summer on the island of
Amity, and everyone is having fun.
But, needless to say, there is a
threat lurking in the water. Roy
Scheider, as the local cop, is the first
to suspect that there is a monstrous
great white shark preying on swim-
mers, but no one will listen to him.
The town fathers refuse to close the
beaches for fear of losing the tourist
trade. Of course, as it turns out,
Scheider is right, and he is forced to
put together his own crew and go
hunting for the killer shark himself.

Jaws has all the elements of the
classic BPMM — the vacation setting
that is suddenly threatened by a
creature that spoils everybody’s fun,
the^guy who knows about the mons-
ter but who can’t get anyone to
believe him, the festival (here, the
Fourth of July) that puts everyone in
danger, the mandatory oceanogra-
pher (in this case, Richard Dreyfuss)

Twilight Zone 99

f2 VIDEO

who happens to be an expert on
aquatic beasties, et cetera, et cetera.
But in Spielberg’s hands, these old
cliches become the buildincf blocks
of a spectacularly frightening adven-
ture film.

At his very best, Spielberg
knows how to ride a fine line be-
tween tradition and parody. Raiders
of the Lost Ark, for example, can be
seen as a straight-forward adventure
film and/or as a take-off on the low-
budget serials of the thirties and for-
ties. In the same way. Jaws is both
a BPMM and a parody of the BPMM.
The opening scene of teenagers on
the beach is straight out of Horror at
Party Beach, and the underwater
shots that offer a shark’s eye view of
the swimmers are direct quotations
from The Creature from the Black
Lagoon. Jaws also owes a lot to the
film versions of Moby Dick (with
Robert Shaw in the role of Captain
Ahab), The Old Man and the Sea,
and other sea-faring classics. Spiel-
berg has fun with these cliches. He
doesn’t mind parodying the tradition
and even his own film — witness the
scene in which a kid plays a “Killer
Shark” video game.

On the other hand, you don’t
have to get all these references in
order to appreciate Jaws. In its own
right, it is a terrifying, heart-stopping
BPMM, and the final shark hunt—
which takes up perhaps the last third
of the film — is one of the most excit-
ing sequences ever. Watch it again
and see what you think.

And now for the bad news. Jaws
was such a financial success that
there had to be a Jaws II (MCA)

in 1978, and, as usual, the sequel
does not measure up to the original.
Roy Scheider is back, but this time
the focus in on Scheider’s teenage
son and his friends. It’s the good old
BPMM “teens menaced by monster”
routine, but while Spielberg is able to
poke fun at this tradition, Jeannot
Szwarc, the director of Jaws II, offers
these cliches with a straight face, as
if we’ve never seen them before. But
there is nothing original here. Almost
every scene is lifted from Spielberg’s
film, and the teenage kids are the
usual bunch— the nerd, the wise guy,
the beauty queen, et cetera. Schei-
der does a good job as Sheriff Brody,
but, in the end. Jaws II simply takes
itself too seriously to be much fun.

Jaws 3-D (MCA), directed by Joe
Alves, has the same problems, de-
spite an extremely talented cast that
includes Dennis Quade, Bess Arm-
strong, and Lou Gossett, Jr., fresh
from his Oscar for An Officer and a
Gentleman. Set in a theme park
called “Sea World,” this is Jaws II
all over again, with Sheriff Brody’s
two sons all grown up and facing yet
another great white, this time without
dad’s help.

Bess Armstrong, the oceanograph-
er of the film, and the staff of “Sea
World” capture a great white shark
that turns out to be a baby, and soon
mama comes to claim her youngster.
This is a direct steal from an old Brit-
ish film called Gorge, but Alves
pretends that the idea is brand new.
In fact, nothing here is very interest-
ing or original. We’ve seen it all
before, even the feeble 3-D effects.

Jaws 3-D was the last of the Jaws

movies, but not the last of the new
wave of BPMMs. Tentacles (Vest-
ron) — one of tie first and one of the
worst Jaws rip-offs— is an Ital-
ian/American venture, produced by
Ovidio Assonitis and featuring, of all
people, Shelley Winters, John Hus-
ton, and Henry Fonda, all woefully
out of place. Claude Akins (who has
been in more “B” horror flicks than
anyone except maybe Bradford Dill-
man) is here too in his perennial cop
role, wearing his Sheriff Lobo uni-
form and trying to figure out why all
the fun-loving swimmers on his Cali-
fornia beach are disappearing.

It turns out that they are all vic-
of a giant octopus (get it?
jaws = shark aid tentacles = octupus),
and it falls to 3o Hopkins (the ocean-
ographer) to fiunt it down. Tentacles
follows the Jelws formula so blindly
that any viewer can predict exactly
what will happen a good half hour in
advance. The only question I had
during the film was: Isn’t the octopus
a timid, harmless creature? Finally,
one of the characters actually asks
Hopkins this very question, and the
expert on aquatic beasties gives a
definitive answer: “Well,” he says,
“this one isn’t!” And that settles
that.

At the other end of the BPMM
spectrum is Piranha (Warner), an ex-
cellent film produced by Roger Cor-
man, directed by Joe Dante, and
written by John Sayles, who also
wrote Alligator and wrote and
directed The Brother from Another
Planet. The CEist here is a who’s who
of the monster film— Bradford Dillman
(who’s been in more “B” horror films
than anyone, erxeept maybe John Sax-
on), Barbara Steele (of many hor-
ror classics), Kevin McCarthy {Inva-
sion of the Body Snatchers), Paul
Bartel (director of Death Race 2000
and Eating Raouf), and Dick Miller
{Little Shop of Horrors and Buckets of
Blood).

Piranha works as a scary film and
builds a lot o1 excitement, but, in the
end, it is pure parody. A new strain
of piranha is released accidentally in-
to a river, and soon a school of
these little monsters is munching on
the local pof)ulace. Piranha repeats
all the themes of the BPMM in strict
order — the youngsters-threatened-by-
the-monster-tfieme, the water-festival
theme, the-refusal-of-the-authorities-
to-listen-to-the-hero theme, but the

100 Twilight Zone

film never stops poking fun at them
or at itself. Characters watch fish
cartoons and old BPMMs on tv, read
Moby Dick on the beach, and spout
lines like “People eat fish, fish don’t
eat people.” Bartel is particularly
good as a storm trooper camp direc-
tor, but Dick Miller stea s the show
as a has-been Western movie star
turned entrepeneur who is holding
the grand opening of hit! Lost River
Lake Resort and, at the same time,
trying to hide the fact that his lake
is full of deadly fish. Unfortunaltely
for him, his guests are eaten right
before the eyes of the local media.
As one tv reporter puts it: “Lost
River Lake — terror, horror, death.
Film at eleven.”

Well, for every Piranha, it seems
there must be a Piranha II (Embassy
Home Entertainment). Ovidio Assoni-

Annette in Beach Blanket Bingo.

tis, who brought us Tentacles,
returns with this fiasaco that, as a
sequel to a rip-off, has very little
chance of success. The film is, as
one might expect, the same old stuff,
except that, unlike the original
Piranha, Piranha II takes itself
seriously, despite the fact that its
premise is totally ridiculous. These
piranha, far from being the simple
people-munching variety we know
and love, can live out of water and
even fly after their victims!?! Enough
said.

Blood Beach (Media) came along
in 1980, five years after Spielberg
started the BPMM revival, and it isn’t
a bad effort at all. Starring John Sax-
on (who’s been in more “B” movies
than anyone except maybe Doug

McClure), the film offers a nice twist
on the stock BPMM theme. Here, the
monster doesn’t live in the ocean; it
lives in the sand and pulls people
down in the beach. As Saxon’s char-
acter says: “just when you though it
was safe to go back in the water,
you can’t get to it.”

This little film really has a lot go-
for it. For example, it has no ocean-
ographers, no beach party festivals
to be disrupted by the monster, and
the creature itself doesn’t look like a
guy in a rubber suit. If nothing else,
Burt Young’s performance as a ridic-
ulously crass and tasteless cop who
believes the murders are being com-
mitted by the American Nazi Party
makes the film worth seeing.

Roger Corman’s production of Hu-
manoids from the Deep (Warner)
brings us full-circle. Directed by Bar-
bara Peters and starring Doug
McClure (who’s been in more “B”
horror films than anyone except may-
be Claude Akins), this is a 1950s
BPMM, updated fOr the eighties. It
has everything you need to make a
BPMM — the oceanographer, the An-
nual Salmon Festival, the teens on
the beach (humanoids always seem
to prefer teens as victims), the evil
industrialists whose experiments
gave birth to the monsters in the first
place, and, of course, the monsters
themselves, created by Rob Bottin.

The plot is pure Corman. The hu-
manoids, as it turns out, are a rapid-
ly evolving species of primitive fish
who have become amphibious and
who now are trying to speed up their
own evolutionary process by mating
with human women. Obviously, the
humanoids know no more about how
evolution works than Frederick
James, author of this ludicrous plot,
but, when all is said, it doesn’t seem
to matter. There is some nastiness
here, but there is also a lot of grim
fun, particularly when the humanoids
invade the local carnival and start
chasing the girls. If you liked the old
made-for-the-drive-in-crowd BPMMs
of the fifties and sixties, you’ll prob-
ably get a real kick out of this one.

So take a day off from the sun
summer and screen some of these
BPMMs for yourself. The best of
them are worth seeing, and even the
worst are fun— because they’re the
worst. Besides, after you’ve seen
Jaws again, you probably won’t want
to go back in the water anyway. ■

GRAY PLACE

(continued from page 81)
to his lower chest, and his arms in up
to the elbows. There was a woman
standing close to him, maybe a dozen
feet away. As I got closer, but not too
close, I saw that the man was sudden-
ly starting to move. It was loosening
up around him. The woman jumped
and I expected her to run away as fast
as she could, of course, because when
it starts to liquify you never know
what direction the effect will move,
and you want to get out of there as
fast as you can. But this woman didn't
behave that way. The man was strug-
gling to get out and the woman ac-
tually took a few steps toward him!
She was holding out her arms and
calling to him.

I stopped and stared. I'd never seen
anybody act like that before. He was
still struggling, and at last he found a
solid place and was getting out, and
the woman actually reached forward
and helped him out! They staggered off
a few feet and then stopped, and they
threw their arms around each other and
hugged and kissed. They were both cry-
ing, standing not ten feet from where
he had come out. But they could both
have gone in at any second. At last
they moved away, walking arm in arm.

I suddenly realized I'd been stand-
ing in one position all that time, and
I hadn't even been thinking about
myself. I moved away as quickly as
I dared, away from the liquid place
and awa^ from them.

I couldn't believe what I'd just
seen. I never saw anybody do such a
thing. I've never met anyone here yet
I'd have taken the chance to hug and
kiss. For that matter. I've never even
met anybody again that I'd talked to
and then parted from.

I wished there were somebody
around that had seen it too, so I'd
have someone to talk to about it.

I looked around and I didn't see
anyone. I kept walking. I looked over-
head. The dull gray sky stretched
overhead from horizon to horizon,
just as the flat gray surface underfoot
stretched from horizon to horizon in
ever direction. I don't look at the sky
very often; there's nothing up there
and I keep my eyes on the surface.
The sky is not where the danger is.

I was walking along, slowly, think-
ing about these things, when I felt the
surface go liquid, like mercury, under
my right foot. I jumped and twisted
but I went the wrong way; I slipped;

I Went in. I threw my arms up and
fell straight, and then it hardened and
I stopped. I was in only to a little
below the waist and my arms were
free, so it wasn't too bad. It's all right. ■

Twilight Zone 101

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